


The Sad and Broken

by Dull_Rainbow



Series: Sad and Broken (aka where I lash my anger out) [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: .... Later, Alya Salt, Anger, But he get's better I swear!, Chloé Bourgeois Redemption, Depression, F/F, F/M, Fluff, God I hate Lila, I dont have an upload schedule and I'm sorry, I have lots of Salt, I'm Bad At Summaries, I'm Bad At Tagging, Let it Rain Salt, M/M, Not Adrien Hate I swear, Ok maybe it is slight Adrien Hate, SO MUCH FLUFF
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2020-07-28 09:56:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 49,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20062135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dull_Rainbow/pseuds/Dull_Rainbow
Summary: They broke her. Completely destroyed her. For weeks she let them bully her, throw their snide comments, and over all let them tear her down. Well no more. Because there was nothing left the broken. She was done. Done with everything her so called 'friends" did to her, done with being in love with Adrien, she was just done. She was leaving and never coming back. Will the new people in her life and perhaps a new love interest be able to fix her broken heart? Or will she forever be trapped in her broken fairytale?





	1. Broken

__

It hurts. God it hurts.’ Marinette thought as red, hot tears rolled down her and fell to the cool bathroom tiles.  
_“How could you hurt Lila like that Marinette?! You think you can just get away with bullying like this?” Alya screamed._  
Alya’s screams echoed in her head.  
_“N-no! I swear I’m not!” Marinette stumbled out._  
_“Don’t try and lie to me!” Alya roared as she held Lila as she shed her crocodile tears. “Lila told me everything! How you trip her in the hall, the hurtful words! You even cornered her in the bathroom and threatened her!_  
_ “A-Alya-”_  
_ “NO! There are no excuses for this behavior! I can’t believe I ever saw you as a friend!"_  
_ Her classmates were starting the crowd her. Their pointed glares stabbed at her heart as they too started to yell at her._  
_ “Jerk!”_  
“Stop,” Marinette whispered.  
_“Monster!”_  
“Please…. Stop …”  
“_You’re just as bad as Hawkmoth!”_  
_ “Villain!_”  
Marinette curled into herself as she covered her hands over her ears. Hoping it would quiet the cruel voices.  
_“You’re a horrible person!”_  
_“You’re nothing but a bully!”_  
_ “I wish we were never friends!”_  
That was when Marinette finally ran. Alya words ran through her head: _“I wish we were never friends!”_. She ran into the bathroom sobbing. Falling into the floor as she drowned in her own tears. Her conversation with Adrien a few weeks back replayed through her mind.  
_“Marinette you shouldn’t expose her,” said Adrien as he quickly snatched her wrist._  
_“Why not?” Too angry at Lila to be flustered. “She’s lying to them, lying to everyone! Making false promises and leading them on!”_  
_ “She’ll get akumatized! You don’t want that do you?” Adrien asked sternly._  
_ “Of course not! But she’s just manipulating them. She’s going to hurt them!”, Marinette yelled as she snatched her wrist from Adrien’s hold._  
_ “They’re just some little white lies, it’s not like she’s hurting anyone”._  
She scoffed through the hiccups and tears.  
‘Well she’s hurting me,’ she angrily thought as more tears fell  
_“As long as we know, it’s going to be alright.”_  
‘Liar….’ she bitterly thought.  
_“We’ll get through this together.”_  
‘Liar,’ anger rising, breath caught in her throat.  
_“I’ll stand by you.”_  
“LIAR!”  
Memories flooded through her again. Memories of Adrien standing aside as they berated her. Memories of Adrien staying quiet as they made their snide comments. Memories of him letting them harass, yell, bully her, throughout the weeks. As he did nothing. Absolutely nothing. As they ran her out of the classroom with their hurtful words. Words that keep on replaying in her ears.  
_“Jerk!”_  
_“Monster!”_  
_ “Just as bad as Hawkmoth!”_  
“Mari-"  
_“Villain!”_  
_“Horrible person!”_  
“Marinette-!”  
“Bully!”  
_“Wish we were never friends!”_  
“Marinette calm down-”  
_“Villain!”_  
_“Horrible person!”_  
_ “Monster!”_  
_ “Wish we were never friends!”_  
_ “Jerk!”_  
“Marinette I’m begging you-!"  
_“Villain”_  
“Wish we were never friends!”  
“Bully!”  
“Marinette please!”  
_“Wish we were never friends!”_  
_“Wish we were never friends!”_  
_ “Wish we were never friends!”_  
_ “Wish we were never friends!”_  
_ “Wish we were never friends!”_  
_ **“WISH WE WERE NEVER FRIENDS!”**_  
“Marinette if you don’t calm down you’ll get akumatized!” a tiny voiced sobbed.  
This snapped Marinette out of her thoughts as a purple butterfly flew towards her. She didn’t have to calm down, she didn’t have to repress her emotions, she didn’t really have to do anything. As she looked up to the butterfly, she stopped feeling sad. She stopped feeling angry. All she felt was exhaustion. She was so tired. Tired of the bullying. Tired of her so called “friends”. Tired of being in love with Adrien. She was tired of it all. The purple butterfly flew away, no longer interested as she had no negative emotions to feed off of. She stood up from spot and wiped the stray tears off her face.  
“M-Marinette?” Tiki called warily. “Are…. Are you ok?”  
Silence was all she got from Marinette before she had to dash back into her bag as Marinette left the bathroom. Marinette continued walking down the halls, passed the courtyard, through the college’s gates all the way home.  
“Marinette!” her mother called with concern as she walked through the bakery’s door.  
“What’s wrong? Are you ok? Are you hurt? Why are you home early?” her father asked as he exited the kitchen to greet his daughter.  
They looked at her with concern in their eyes as he looked back at them, with dead, lifeless eyes.  
“I want to transfer to a different school.”


	2. New School, New Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “M’lady are you ok?” Chat asked as they sat side by side on the Eiffel Tower, taking a break from their nightly patrols.
> 
> “Of course Chat! I’m fine!” Ladybug replied with faux enthusiasm and smile. Not daring to look at him.
> 
> “No. No you’re not.” Her smile immediately fell.
> 
> Silence. 
> 
> “How can you tell?”
> 
> “Your eyes.”
> 
> “My eyes?” Ladybug questioned.
> 
> “Yeah, your eyes. Your eyes used to be bright, vibrant Irises. They used to bloom with happiness and excitement. But now, they’re wilted. No longer are they the bright light blue, now they are dark and wilted as if it was poisoned by sadness.

Previously:

_ They looked at her with concern in their eyes as he looked back at them, with dead, lifeless eyes. _

_ “I want to transfer to a different school.”  _

  
  


To say Tom and Sabine were angry was an understatement. After Marinette recapped the last few weeks to them, they were literally fuming. Sabine looked as if she was going to explode any moment, while Tom looked ready to kill. They immediately pulled Marinette from her coll ége and started to look for new schools. They decided on Collége Arté Du Louvre, with Marinette’s grades and noteworthy portfolio, she was offered immediate admission and a scholarship for the normally expensive school. It was further than her old  coll ége, but was still a walking distance from the bakery. It was her first day of her new school, she for once did not wake up late and didn’t have to rush to put on her new school uniform. Her blazer was a vinyl royal blue over a white button up tied together with a thin black tie. A plaid skirt the same color as her blazer, with black and white undertones flowed halfway down her thighs. She slipped into white knee-high socks and black flats. She didn’t bother to look in the mirror when she was done, she didn’t care how she looked anymore, there was no point.

“Marinette? Are you sure you’re ready to go back to school so soon?” the red kwami asked with concern as Marinette tied her hair into her signature pigtails look.

For the past few weeks the kwami became more and more concern for her chosen’s well being. The once bright eyed girl looked as if she went into a war. And she did. A war between her and Lie-la, and she lost. All her soldiers committed a coup d'état and betrayed her for an enemy giving out false promises and rewards. She had fallen, and she may never get back up. Not even her partner’s helpful words could save her.

_ A few days ago _

_ _ _ “M’lady are you ok?” Chat asked as they sat side by side on the Eiffel Tower, taking a break from their nightly patrols. _

_ _ _ “Of course Chat! I’m fine!” Ladybug replied with faux enthusiasm and smile. Not daring to look at him. _

_ _ _ “No. No you’re not.” Her smile immediately fell. _

_ Silence.  _

_ _ _ “How can you tell?” _

_ _ _ “Your eyes.” _

_ _ _ “My eyes?” Ladybug questioned. _

_ _ _ “Yeah, your eyes. Your eyes used to be bright, vibrant Irises. They used to bloom with happiness and excitement. But now, they’re wilted. No longer are they the bright light blue, now they are dark and wilted as if it was poisoned by sadness.”  _

_ _ _ She finally looked at him and let a dry chuckle out when he finished. _

_ _ _ “How poetic of you Chat, but you’re wrong…. I’m not sad, just ... tired.” _

_ _ _ “Please don’t lie to me,” she flinched at his words and looked away. _

_ _ _ “Chaton please, can we just end this and go back to the patrol?” she stood up, back now facing Chat Noir, she readied her yo-yo. _

_ _ _ He shot up and grabbed her wrist before she could leave. She felt a familiar air when he did this, but brushed it off. _

_ “Please, M’lady,” his eyes begging for answers. “Talk to me.” _

_ Silence enveloped them again. _

_ “Chaton…. Do you promise to never betray me? To never hurt me?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.  _

_ Taken aback by this, his grip loosened. He wrapped his arms as he hugged her from behind. _

_ “I don’t know who hurt you enough to make you question my loyalty, but I swear, I will never hurt you in any way. And if any ever hurts you, I will be there to protect you.” _

_ Tears stung her eyes as he hugged her. He hugged her until she stopped shaking and her tears cast aside. He loosened her grip as she turned towards him. _

_ “Thank you…,” she all but whispered. “You are one of the few people I can trust now, and it means so much to me to hear that.” _

_ She looked up into his eyes. However, they still looked as lifeless as they were before. _

_ “But the damage is done. You can’t save me from this.” _

_ With that she swung away, leaving the sad and confused cat. _

Marinette picked up her school bag and her bag that Tiki usually hid in. She finally looked at the red kwami and gave her a sad smile.

“It’s fine Tiki. I’m fine. It’s a new school, it’s a restart. You don’t need to worry.”

Her words didn’t reasure the small goddess of creation at all. But she didn’t want to pry as cause her chosen to have another breakdown like the one a few days ago. She didn’t have anytime to reconsider because Marinette was leaving for school. She walked down the stairs and said her good-byes to her parents.

“Wait Marinette!” her mother stopped her before she could get out the door. “Take these and give it to your new classmates.” 

She handed her a box full of macaroons.

“Thanks mama,” she took the box gave her a smile, they both knew was fake. “I will.”

“Ok sweetie, have fun at school.”

Marinette didn’t respond as she left for school. Sabine watched as she left for school, sadness enveloped the small woman as her husband stood beside her.

“Do you think we should do something? Should we get professional help?” Sabine asked her husband.

He sighed.

“We can offer it to her, but we shouldn’t push it. For now, until she decides she wants therapy, if she decides she wants therapy…. We just need to be there for her, to support her, let her know that we will always be there for her and that we love her. Maybe one day, she’ll be able to be genuinely happy again.”

Sabine looked at him with sad eyes.

“I hope so.”

_ _

Marinette looked at her new school. It was big. The courtyard stretched for what seemed like miles as the path was aligned with beautiful imported cherry blossom trees, with the centerpiece of the courtyard being a grand fountain. Collége Arté Du Louvre was the best art school in all of Paris, it offered many art programs ranging from fashion to music. The school student’s consisted either rich heir(ist)s or artistic prodigies. Marinette felt a bit nervous, feeling a bit unworthy as she walked through the gates but quickly pushed it aside. She got in. She was one of them no matter what anyone said, even herself. She was a bit early so she could go to the office and hopefully look around the school. She picked up her schedule and quickly started to look around. As she looked for her classes more students started to come. As she was looking at her schedule, she didn’t notice and equally unaware person, face in a book, walking towards her. They bumped into each other causing papers and a book to fall onto the floor.

“I am so sorry,” she quickly scrambled to get her papers and hand the person their book back.

“No need to apologize, I was also not paying attention,” the person replied crouching down to help her pick up her papers.

Marinette finally looked at the person she bumped into. He was wearing a similar outfit to hers except for the grey slacks and brown dress shoes. His hair blond was pushed back for her to see his sharp green eyes. He handed her the papers as she handed him his book.

“Thank you, again, sorry, I wasn’t paying attention,” she said she stood up. “I’m trying to figure out where my classes are, I’ve been been her for ten minutes and I still can’t find a single one.”

He also stood up and quickly looked at her classes. As he was doing this, she noticed he was a head taller than her.

“We both have the same math class, here I’ll walk you there,” as he started to walk towards the direction to assumes would be their class.

She was momentarily stunned before snapping out of it and quickly catching up to him.

“What is your reason for being here?” he asked as she finally caught up to him.

It took her a bit to register what he was asking.

“Oh! I’m here for fashion,” she quickly answered.

He hummed in response.

“And what about you?”

“What about me?” he asked almost defensively.

“I mean what are you here for? What is the artistic passion did you have, that pushed into going into a school that is specifically meant for the arts?”

“Oh….” he trailed off. “I’m here because I play the piano, however I wouldn’t say I’m entirely passionate about it. I enjoy it, but I wouldn’t pursue it as a job, maybe a hobby.”

“Then why are you here?”

He looked at her and she just realised what she just said.

“I-I mean. I didn’t mean it like that! What I meant was- I mean if you don’t really like it why go to school for it! Not that you shouldn’t still go here! I’m not saying you shouldn’t go to this school, I would never tell you what-”

She was quickly interrupted when she heard the boy started to laugh. 

“Don’t worry, I know what you meant,” he said after he was finished laughing at her, now wearing a playful smirk. “Yes this school is well known for the arts, but uncommonly known it is also for business. While my main major is piano, I’m here mainly for business, my true passion, and the only reason my main major is piano is because they offered me a scholarship because of piano.”

She looked at him finally understanding. A music scholarship for the piano, she just assumed that he was rich by his demeanor, someone who wouldn’t need a scholarship like she did. 

He started to chuckle.

‘Oh god did I say that out loud?!’ she thought painicly.

“Yes, I am what you call, rich. But why pay for something when you are being offered it for free?”

“True….” she said as they finally arrived at their classroom.

“Oh gosh, I just realized I never introduced myself, I’m Marinette!” she said as she extended her hand out.

He smirked at her gesture.

"Félix. It’s very nice to meet you,” as he shook her hand. “If you want, you may sit with me and I can help you if you need it.”

For the first time in weeks, Marinette smiled a genuine smile.

“I would like that. Macaroon?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second chapter! Whohoo! I'm so happy! I did not expect the amount of hits, kudos, bookmarks, and those nice comments people left. I hoped this chapter was good and that you enjoyed it. Also Felix has arrived! Love that boy! If you have any criticism please leave it in the comments, and if you have any requests about how you want this to go, I'll put them into consideration 'cause in all honesty I did not think past the first chapter and this chapter was just me spit-balling.


	3. A Coconut is Not A Mammal!

Previously:

_ “Oh gosh, I just realized I never introduced myself, I’m Marinette!” she said as she extended her hand out. _

_ He smirked at her gesture. _

_ “F _ _ élix, it’s very nice to meet you,” as he shook her hand. “If you want, you may sit with me and I can help you if you need it.” _

_ For the first time in weeks, Marinette smiled a genuine smile. _

Having math with Félix was fun. The math itself wasn’t fun, but being with Félix was. It turns out they had two other class periods and lunch together. He classmates and her teachers were nice, they were warm and welcoming.

‘Wonder how long that will last,’ she bitterly thought as her third period class ended. She picked up her things and headed to lunch.

She looked around for Félix as she walked into the lunch room. She finally spotted his bright blond hair sitting at a table in the middle of a small crowd of rowdy students. He was scowling as he tried to ignore the chaos around him. One student was trying to, what it seems, rip off the head of another student while the other three students were either trying to stop the fight, encourage the fight, or just sitting idly. Marinette started walking over towards him and the loud group of students. He finally noticed Marinette when she was half way towards his table. His scowl had been replaced with relief as he quickly made his way to Marinette.

“Hi Félix!” she kindly greeted the blond.

“Hi Marinette,” he said quickly as he pushed her away from the rowdy table. “Let’s eat somewhere else.”

“Why?” She questioned as she let him push her away from the table.

“Don’t question it. Hurry, before they notice us-”

“Hey Fé! Where do you think you’re going?” a stocky boy slug his arms around Félix’s shoulder. Marinette looked to see it was the student who was about to have his head ripped off.

“Yeah sparrow?” a tall girl asked as she slug her arm on the other side of Félix. Marinette recognize as the girl who was about to rip the stocky boy’s head off. “Where do you think you’re scampering off to.”

Félix scowled as he shrugged them off his shoulders. He turned toward them and tried to hide Marinette with his body.

“Away from you lot. I swear every time you guys have a debate it gets dumber and dumber.”

“Our debates are not stupid!”

“They are legit problems and or questions!”

They yelled over one another.

“Your topic today was literally if a coconut is a mammal.”

“That is a legit topic! They have hair, they produce milk and they have nipples! Hence they are mammals!” the stocky boy exclaimed.

The tall girl groaned loudly.

“Claude I swear to God I’m going to kill you! Literally only one of those reasonings fall into the mammal classification! And for the last time, coconuts don’t have nipples!!”

“Then what are those little holes coconuts have? Hmm Anais? They are the easiest way to get to the coconut milk, making them nipples. Boom!”

She only let out a loud screech as a warning before she jumped at him. The two students from before rushed over and now were working together to stop Anais from killing Claude.

Félix tried to use this opportunity to make a run for it when he was stopped and realised Marinette was no longer standing behind him.

“Hi, I don’t believe we met, my name is Alec.”

Marinette was dragged away while Félix was talking to, whom she assumed, were his friends.

“Um…. Hi, my name is Marinette, it’s nice to meet you.”

The boy, Alec, was the one sitting idly as Claude and Anais fought. He was taller than her, but shorter then F élix. His hair was relatively long and nearly fell past his hazel eyes. It was brown and curly. He wore the same uniform as Félix, however was holding his blazer instead of wearing it, while his button-up’s sleeves were rolled to elbows letting her see a bit of his half sleeve tattoos that stood out on his pale skin. 

“Alec what are you doing to Marinette?” Félix questioned as he hastily pulled her behind him, as if he was protecting her from Alec.

“Relax Félix,” Alec said as he put his hands up, showing Félix he meant no harm. “Just getting to know your little friend, or, at least I was trying to before you rudely interrupted. 

Félix scowled at this, but soon slumped his shoulders in defeat. He started to pinch the bridge of his nose. Claude’s screams of anguish started to become distinctly louder. 

“Alec may you please stop your sister from killing Claude? I don’t think Allan and Allegra can hold her off any longer.” 

Alec shrugged, but soon walked over to his sister and picked her off the screaming Claude.

“Hey instead of trying to kill Claude, again, why don’t you greet the new girl?”

Everyone’s eyes were now Marinette, she moved closer to Félix hoping to hide from their eyes.

_ Their pointed glares stabbed at her heart as they too started to yell at her. _

She shook the memory from her mind.

“Hello. My name’s Marinette.”

“Oh hi!” Anais said as she jumped out of her brother’s hold. “My name’s Anais! The blond girl is Allegra, the boy with headphones is Alan, and this idiot is Claude.” Anias was taller than her brother by a few inches, almost taller than F élix. Her curly hair dyed a bright red and was shaved on one side while the other side flowed to her shoulders. Like her brother, she had pale skin and hazel eyes, however it was hard to see one of her eyes due to the hair almost completely covering it. Instead of a blazer she wore a big beautiful galaxy hoodie. 

“Hey! Don’t listen to her, she just doesn’t get my brilliant mind. Claude at your service” as a walked to Marinette. He picked her up and kissed it. She giggled. Claude had dark swept hair with bright blue eyes. He was taller than F élix and had a bit stockier built. His flirty deminer reminded her of Chat Noir.

“Please ignore both of them. Sometimes I wonder if they somehow share the same brain cell-”

“Hey!”

“Hey!”

“-but besides that! Welcome to Arté Du Louvre!” Allegra greeted. Her long blonde hair was braided a swept to one side. She had bright purple eyes and sun kissed skin with her uniform looking exactly like hers.

Marinette smiled at the blonde.

“Yeah welcome! It’s nice to see a new face!” Alan exclaimed. He had shortcut hair, vibrant green eyes and dark skin. The only modifications to his uniform were the headphones around his neck. It reminded her a bit like Nino. 

Pain shot through her head remembering the hurtful words her childhood friend told her.

“Ok we’re done with the introductions good? Good. Let’s go Marinette,” Félix said as he started pushing Marinette away from his friends again, only to notice Marinette was, again no longer in front of him and now in front of Alec.

“Alec, I have no idea how you keep on doing that but stop it.” Félix scowled as he tried to reclaim Marinette.

“And where do you think you’re going with her?”, Alec asked as he pushed Marinette away from Félix’s grip. 

“Trying to monopolize her or something?” Claude joked. “Not fair, we want to be friends with her too!”

Félix’s scowl deepened.

“And let her be corrupted by idiots like you? Thanks, but no thanks.” he said pulling Marinette away from Alec’s hold.

“Come on. Let her decide, she is, after all, her own person.” Alec said with a smirk.

Marinette looked at Félix, then at his friends, then back at Félix.

“I-I do want to get to know your friends.” she said warily.

Félix sighed in defeat as the rest cheered.

They dragged her and Félix back to their table and started bombarding her with questions.

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Do you have any hobbies?”

“Favorite animals?”

“Do you think coconuts are mammals?”

“Shut up Claude!”

“What’s your major?”

“Why’d you switch schools in the middle of the year?”

“Ok calm down, let her think for a moment,” cut in Félix.

Marinette chuckled, silently thanking Félix.

“Well, my favorite color is pink. My hobbies are baking, designing, and sewing. I’m very partial to cats. And, um, I don’t think coconuts are mammals-”

“Aw-”

“Claude I swear to god-!”

“-my major is fashion. And as for why I left my old school ...” Marinette trailed off, with a sad look in her eyes.

Everyone could sense, whatever the reason, she didn’t want to talk about it right now.

“You said you bake?” Alec asked, quickly changing the subject. “That’s cool! When’d you start?”

Marinette’s eyes lit up again, happy about the subject change.

“My parents are the owners of Tom and Sabine's Boulangerie Patisserie! I’ve been baking basically my whole life.”

“Woah your parents are Tom and Sabine?” Claude exclaimed.

“I love their baked goods,” said Allegra with starry eyes.

“Their bakery is the best in all of Paris,” exclaimed Anais.

Marinette giggled at their responses and took out the box of macaroons her mother gave her.

“Well, if you want, you can have some macaroons my father made.”

Everyone’s eyes lit up at the offer. They dove for the brightly colored desserts and happily ate them.

“Oh my god-”

“These are so good!”

“If I died right now, I would die happy.”

“That could be arranged-”

“Anais please calm down.”

As her new friends(?) ate the macaroons, Félix scooted closer to Marinette.

“You do realize you didn’t have to do that.” Félix whispered to Marinette. “They have enough energy without the added sugar.”

Marinette looked at him. A smile on her face.

“I wanted to. They seemed nice, and it makes me happy to know they’re enjoying it.”

He stared at her for a bit, then sighed with a small smile on his face.

“You’re too nice for your own good. You do realize now you’re stuck with them right? They’re never going to let you go.”

She turned her head to look at the group of friends.

Anais and Claude were fighting over the last matcha macaroon, Allegra was rolling her eyes at the scene in front of her as she happily ate her strawberry macaroon, while Alec and Alan were discussing if the chocolate or vanilla macaroon was better.

“I think I’ll be ok with that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter today! I literally have no life! Yay! Hahahaha.... On a unrelated note we are finally introduced to the Quatinc Kids and my OCs! If you do not know who the Quantic Kids are, they were the early designs of the Miraculous Ladybug storyboard, however did not appeal to the Ladybug broadcasters and were scrapped out of the storyline. As for my Ocs, they are based loosely off my friends from school. I hoped this chapter was to your liking and any criticism, please leave in the comments below. Thanks!
> 
> Edit:  
So someone told me about my mistake involving the bakery's name, thank you for that and I fixed it!


	4. The Human Embodiment of Grumpy Cat

Previously:

_ “You’re too nice for your own good. You do realize now you’re stuck with them right? They’re never going to let you go.” _

_ She turned her head to look at the group of friends. _

_ Anais and Claude were fighting over the last matcha macaroon, Allegra was rolling her eyes as she happily ate her strawberry macaroon, while Alec and Alan were comparing discussing if the chocolate or vanilla macaroon was better. _

_ “I think I’ll be ok with that.” _

  
  


In the short lunch period she learned so much about Félix and his friends. Claude was an aspiring actor and is majoring in the theater art’s program. He was an extra in a few movies and snagged some main roles in a few theater production. Alan was a music major and was able to study with a few big music artists. Anais was a very talented painter and in the art major, she was able to get some art works in a few art galleries. Allegra and Alec were both in the dance program, while Allerga’s major focused on ballet, Alec majored in a multitude of dances. Allegra was able to get the role of Clara from the Nutcracker while Alec was featured in a few music videos and danced in a production of Newsies. She also learned Anais and Alec were twins.

_ “Wait, really?” _

_ “Don’t worry, I had a hard time believing it too.” _

_ “No one cares what you think Claude.” _

They’ve all had been friends for almost five years, except for Allegra and Félix, who had been friends since childhood due to their parents being friends. Before they could learn more about each other the lunch bell started to wring. Allegra and Alan were both in her fourth period history class, Anais was in her fifth period science class with her and Félix, and apparently Alec and Claude were in her third period French class.They all decided to walk to walk to class together and split later when they reached their designated classes.

“So Mari,” Anais spoke as the walked to class. “How do you know the king of frowns?”

‘King of frowns?’ Marinette thought. ‘Oh! She must be talking about Félix!’

“We both weren’t paying attention and accidently bumped into each other. Since we both have the same first period he walked with me to our class.”

“That was nice of you Félix!” Allegra smiled.

“What? Do you expect me to just leave her there flustered and let her be late to class?”

“Well no.”

“No.”

“Maybe.”

“Honestly it depends on your mood.”

“Yes, you’ve literally done that to me before.”

Félix scowled at his friends.

“Aw Fé! Don’t be like that!” Claude said as slug his arm around Félix. “We love you and you know that!”

“Claude get off me.” Félix growled as he was pushing off Claude.

“Ignore them,” said Alan as he walked side-by-side to Marinette. “I hope Félix didn’t say anything rude. Again, like Claude said, we love him and all, but... sometimes he can be a little ...”

“Blunt?” Chimed in Anais.

“Yeah, blunt.”

“No, he was very nice. Too be honest, I was the one being a little blunt, but he was very understanding with his response, granted he laughed at me, but it’s better than him getting mad at me.” 

Marinette smiled at the memory, but paused when she noticed the group was oddly quiet. She looked around to see Alan’s and Allegra’s shocked face, Anais’s mouth open in shock, Claude looked like he was about to go into cardiac arrest, while Alec, an odd reaction due to others reactions, looked impressed.

“Woah, woah, woah!” Anais exclaimed. “You made the human embodiment of grumpy cat laugh?!”

“I am not the human embodi-”

“On your first day?!”

“Yes?...” Marinette replied warily. 

Claude jumped to Marinette side exasperated.

“How on earth did you do that?! It took me 47 days to befriend Fé, another 26 to make him smile-”

“Claude why do you know this?”

“-and 52 more days to make him laugh! While you, on the first HOUR of meeting him, made him your friend AND got him to laugh??” 

Claude looked back at a very annoyed Félix.

“Who are you and what did you do to our grumpy child?”

“Claude, shut up.”

“There he is.”

Allegra pulled Marinette from Claude's side.

"Hey, sorry for the weird reactions, it's just unusual for Félix to be that friendly to someone. Especially to someone he just met," Allegra explained. 

Félix looked just about done with everyone at the moment. He let out a very annoyed sigh.

“The reason I'm nicer to Marinette is because, unlike you guys, she doesn’t make me want to rip out my hair every time she talks.”

Anais and Claude let out a fake gasp.

“I’m hurt!” Anais exclaimed with faux pain. “We’re just teasing and you know it- But seriously Marinette, what sort of witchcraft did you use on Mr. Temper over there?”

“Ok everyone, that’s enough,” Alec chimed in. “We’re going to be late for class, we can talk to her later ok?”

Félix gave Alec a thankful look as Alec started to walk away. Anais and Claude groaned as Alan and Allerga started to guide Marinette to their next class. Félix stopped her before she could leave.

"Marinette I'm sorry about them they're probably just on a sugar high right now."

Marinette giggled.

"It's fine." Marinette said as she smiled at Félix. "They're just teasing you, Mr. Grumpy Cat."

Félix looked shocked at first, but soon melted into a smile.

"You're really something Marinette." Félix let out a chuckle.

"Oh my god she made him laugh again! The world's ending!" 

Félix's smile morphed into a scowl.

"I'll see you later Marinette." And with that, Félix walked away to his next class. Marinette smiled as she watched him walk away.

She turned to Alan's and Allegra's smirking faces.

"You like him~" Allegra teased.

"W-what?" Marinette stuttered, a blush blooming on her face.

"Don't even try to deny it!" Alan exclaimed. "You have that longing look on your face that says "absolutely smitten".

Marinette scoffed as she felt the blush on her face spread to her neck and shoulders.

"What ever, let's get to class."

"She didn't deny it~!" Allegra giggled.

She rolled her eyes, as they continued to tease her all the way to class.

During class she couldn't focus, their words replaying in her head

_ "You like him~" _

She blushed again.

_ "Don't even try to deny it!" Alan exclaimed. "You have that longing look on your face that says "absolutely smitten". _

Marinette groaned as she buried her face into her hands.

‘Oh god,’ she thought. ‘I have a thing for blondes.’

Blondes…. Blondes..... Adrien. Oh god Adrien,. She forgot about Adrien, she forgot about her crush on him. Well, used to be crush. After the events of the past few weeks, all the feelings she once felt for him were now withered and shriveled. She didn't know how she felt about Adrien. She gave him the benefit of the doubt, he only did what he did because he was afraid, afraid to be targeted, afraid to be isolated, afraid to be like end up like  _ her _ . Sad. Hurt. Alone. She gritted her teeth at the thought. It still didn't excuse his actions. It didn’t excuse anything he did. He could have still talked to her, even in secret. He could have still hung out with her without telling anyone. He could have just showed a sign, any sign, that he was still her friend. But no. He ignored her suffering and let Lila sink her claws into her classmates just because of his stupid pacafist ideas.

She quickly calmed herself. She refused to waste anymore energy being angry with Adrien and the rest of her former classmates. She is going to continue her life, she is going to be happy. With or without them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another day, another chapter! Sorry I posted later than usual, I was sorta busy. Also, it looks like Marinette has a new crush, maybe Félix does too, who knows? Me, 'cause I'm writing it! I hoped this chapter was to your liking and any criticism and/or mistakes I made, please tell me in the comments! Thank you!


	5. Bridgette

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I just want to include a trigger warning before anyone reads this. This chapter mentions suicide, however doesn't go into graphic detail. Viewers discretion is advised

Previously:

_ She refused to waste anymore energy being angry with Adrien and the rest of her former classmates. She is going to continue her life, she is going to be happy, with or without them.  _

It had only been a few days, but Marinette was able to worm herself into the hearts of the Quantic Kids (Claude’s name for the group of friends). F élix looked over the group of friends and smiled. Marinette had invited them over to the bakery to teach them how to make cupcakes. They decided to walk there after school and when they arrived there were only two people in the bakery, a short, asian woman  and a tall bulky man, whom they assumed were her parents. They warmly greeted the group of friends and showed them to the kitchen. To say they made a mess was an understatement. There was flour everywhere and cupcake batter all over the tables and utensils. An argument broke out between Claude and Anais (to no one’s surprise) and a frosting war broke out. The kitchen, and everyone in it, was covered in rainbow frosting. F élix was mad at first, but then it quickly dissolved as Marinette burst out laughing. His chest felt warm as her bright laughter filled the room. When Félix first met Marinette, he could tell there was something troubling her. There was a storm in her eyes, confliction of emotions clouded her eyes leaving them dark. But as the days went by, the clouds in her eyes parted leaving a beautiful view of the sky. When he was with Marinette, he felt less irritated, dare he say happy. He felt something else, something he hadn’t felt in a long time. He shook the thoughts out of his head as he started to pick up measuring cups and bowls around the rainbow painted kitchen.

“Oh sweetie you don’t have to do that, Tom and I will clean up.” a voice chimed behind him.

He turned to see Sabine Dupain-Cheng as she took everything in his hands and dumped them in the sink,

“That won’t be necessary Mrs. Dupain-Cheng, we made the mess, we should be the ones to clean-”

“No need sweetheart, also please call me Sabine,” she said with a smile.

“That would be rude Mrs.-”

“It wouldn’t be rude at all, please drop the formalities, any friends of Marinette are treated like family,” Marinette’s dad, Tom Dupain-Cheng chimed in. 

Félix looked between the two smiling parents, seeing that there was no arguing this matter.

“Of course Mr. and Mrs.- I mean… Tom and Sabine,” he said with a small blush.

They beamed upon hearing their names. Both surprising him by giving him a hug. It was weird at first… but nice. They let go and called for their daughter. 

“Marinette, why don’t you bring your friends up to your room? We’ll finish cleaning up.”

Marinette looked up from where she was decorating her cupcakes.

“Are you sure maman? We did make a big mess.” 

“It’s fine, go upstairs and bring some baked goods with you.”

Everyone was either heading upstairs or grabbing pastries, as they headed out they said their thanks to the couple.

When they arrived in Marinette’s room the first thing Félix noticed was there was a lot of pink. The aspiring fashion designer wasn’t kidding when she said she liked the color pink. Her walls to her bed sheets, everything was pink with splashes of black and white from her stairs and her desk.

“Woah Marinette your room is so cool!” Allegra exclaimed as looked around.

“Yeah this is amazing, you even have a terrace” Anais chimned in.

Marinette smiled as her friends looked around her room.

“No way!” Claude exclaimed. “You have MechaStrike4? Can we play?” 

“Of course, but get ready to lose!” Marinette responded smugly.

“You’re on!”

  
  


They played for hours, with Marinette in the lead with the most wins. Everyone tried to end the pigtailed girl’s winning streak, only to lose. Even Félix tried but was ultimately demolished in a matter of seconds. They were so focused on the game that they didn’t notice it started raining. Soon it was pouring, and it continued to go unnoticed until a loud rumble of thunder caused them all to jump.

“Woah when did it start raining?” Claude asked as he looked out at Marinette’s window.

“From the looks of it, it’s been raining for a while. We were pretty focused on the game so that’s probably why we didn’t notice when it started,” Alec explained.

“True,” agreed Allegra. “Do you think we’ll be able to get home? It’s raining pretty hard.”

“I don’t think so honey,” Sabine chimned in as she came into Marinette’s room. “A lot of roads are closed due to flooding. I don’t think any of you will be able to go home.”

The mood in the room became sullen.

“Because you kids can’t go home, you’re welcome to stay the night.” 

Everyone’s head shot up at hearing this.

“We don’t want to intrude-”

“Thank you for the offer but-”

“Yay sleep over!”

Anais jumped and hugged Marinette and started talking about the fun plans for the night.

“Thank you for the hospitality Sabine, we appreciate and we promise not to stay up too late.” Alec said politely. 

“Booooo!” yelled Claude, as he, Allegra and Alan joined in Marinette and Anais’ conversation.

“It’s alright sweetie, tomorrow is the weekend, stay up as long as you guys want. We’ll give you blankets and pillows, and Marinette?”

“Yes maman?”

“Is it ok if you provide pajamas for your friends? If I remember correctly pajamas a few months ago?”

“Of course maman.”

Marinette stalked over to her closet and rummaged through a few boxes. She made those pajamas for when the girl squad came over and decided to also make a few masculine designed pajamas for fun. Sadness washed over her as she remembered the last time she had a sleepover. It was a time when she still had friends at Françoise Dupont. It was a time before Lila. 

“Woah did you seriously make these?” a voice interrupted her thoughts, it was Alan.

“Yeah, I’m sorry they’re not better quality, I’m sure you guys are used to higher quality stuff.”

“No way! These are awesome! Are they all superhero themed?” asked Anais.

“Yeah, I hope you don’t mind.”

“Mind? Why would we mind? These are so cool!” Allegra exclaimed as she grabbed the Queen Bee themed knight gown and Ladybug T-shirt.

Marinette smiled, feeling less sad as her new friends praised her work.

“Thank you! Also fair warning they might be a bit big.” 

“That’s ok, you weren’t expecting us anyways. Plus it’s an upgrade from our school uniform, that’d be super uncomfortable.” Claude pointed out as he held the Carapace T-shirt and shorts.

“Well you kids have fun!” Sabine chimined in. “And don’t forget to tell your parents where you are, you don’t want to worry them.”

“Yes ma’am,” they all replied as she left.

As soon as she left Anais stood up and smirked.

“Now who’s ready to have some fun?”

Félix woke up to pitch darkness. Memories of the night flashed through his mind. After they changed to the pajamas Marinette handed out. Félix was wearing a Chat Noir themed hoodie and pajama pants. The pants were pure black while the hoodie was also black it had neon green trimmings around the sleeves and pockets, the interior of the hood was also colored the vibrant green with cat ears sewn on top. It was a bit too big and hung loosely on his thin frame. Everyone was a different hero from the Miraculous team except for Claude and Allegra, who both wanted to wear Ladybug themed pajamas. After everyone changed, it turned into chaos. Somehow a pillow fight (probably Claude’s fault) started. Screams and flying pillows filled the room. Félix, at first, didn’t want to participate in pillow battle royale, that was until Alec threw a pillow in his face. There was no way he was sitting out at that point. After a while, everything seemed to die down. They decided to create a blanket fort to sleep in. After they were done, they soon started talking, and just enjoy one another’s presence. One by one they started to fall asleep as they night went on. 

Félix sat up and looked around, everyone was still asleep. He checked the clock. It flashed the time of 4:31 am. He silently groaned at the sight. He buried his face in his pillow. He layed like that for a bit, then looked at the clock again. 4:32 am. He stood up and tiptoed around the sleeping bodies, heading to the kitchen for a glass of water. He grabbed a cup and turned on the sink, filling the cup with water.

“A little early to be up don’t you think?” asked a voice from behind.

“Jesus-!” Félix exclaimed in shock, nearly dropping his cup. A hand covered his mouth as he turned to see the owner of the voice. It was Alec. Alec put a finger up to his mouth, a universal sign of “be quiet” and smirked, clearly amused by Félix’s reaction.

“You might want to lower your voice,” Alec said in a hushed voice. “You don’t want to wake up the others, do you?”

Félix pushed Alec’s hand from his face.

“Of course not,” Félix said in an equally quiet voice, except for irritation was laced around his words. “If you hadn’t startled me I wouldn’t have raised my voice.”

“I was trying to make my presence known,” Alec said with a shrug. “Why would you have prefered to you turning around and just see a dark figure standing behind you? I’m pretty sure you would have actually screamed at that.”

Félix pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance, knowing Alec was right.

“I just woke up and couldn’t fall back to sleep,” answering Alec’s previous question. “What about you? You’re up too.” Félix asked, now leaning on the sink’s counter, arms crossed.

Alec shrugged his tattooed shoulders again.

Alec was wearing a Rena Rouge themed tank top and pajama pants, exposing his tattoos.

“I noticed you were up so I went and followed you.”

This caught Félix’s attention.

“Noticed? Alec did you even sleep?”

Alec answered Félix question with silence, both knowing the answer. Félix sighed.

“Did you take your anxiety medicine? You know you can’t sleep without them.”

Alec had major anxiety. His thoughts become intense, worries and fears plague his mind. Without his anxiety medication he can’t sleep, contributing to the cause of his insomnia, and due to the sleep deprivation, his anxiety increased causing a loop of clouded thoughts and sleepless nights. His medicine didn’t completely erase his anxiety, but it made it easier for him to handle.

“I didn’t bring it with me,” he said in a nonchalant tone. “I didn’t think I needed them, none of us anticipated staying the night.”

Félix looked at Alec with worry, Alec was looking at Félix, but there was a distance in his eyes, like his mind wasn’t there.

“What level are you at?” Félix asked. They measure Alec’s anxiety by levels. Levels one through three were green lighted, the safe zone. Four through seven were yellow lighted, anxiety will dictate a few decisions but not all of his decisions, and will cause a difficult night’s sleep. Maybe a few sleepless nights. Eight through ten were red lighted, the danger zone. Alec’s only had been in the danger zone once, from Félix’s knowledge at least. No one brings it up, fearing it may bring up bad memories, for everyone, and causing another red lighted experience. 

“I’d say a four, maybe pushing to a five.”

Not an ideal level, but closer to green then red.

“But enough about me, what about you?” Alec quickly change the subject. “How are you and Marinette?”

“What about me and Marinette?” Félix asked warily, a blush creeping his face.

“Oh please, don’t try and hide it, you obviously like her.” Alec teased.

Félix tried to deny it. But no words came out. Silence stretched out as Alec’s smirk grew bigger. He sighed in defeat, shoulders slumped.

“I have no idea why,” finally admitted. “There’s something about her… that makes me want to be with her… any chance I can get, even for a moment… just for the opportunity to see her smile.”

Félix eyes looked away, longing in his eyes.

“I want to treasure that smile as much as I can.”

Alec smiled upon hearing this and walked over to stand next to Félix. 

“Aww you have a crush on her!” he teased, poking at Félix’s cheeks 

Félix blushed harder slapping Alec’s hand away.

“Shut up.”

“Alright, alright I’ll stop.” Alec put his hands up in defeat. “I can see why you like her. She’s pretty, kind, sweet, loving.”

Félix smiled at the image of Marinette.

“She’s filled with determination for her dreams, endless energy and loves her friends unconditionally.” Alec keeps on listing.

Félix hummed in agreement. 

“Kinda reminds me of Bridgette.”

Félix head whipped to stare at Alec upon hearing the name.

Bridgette. No in the group has said that name in over a year. Bridgette used to be in the group, she was the light of the group. She radiated energy that spread to everyone. Bridgette was in love with Félix and made it known. At first, he was annoyed by her antics, but soon fell in love with her because of her persistence and most notable, her kind heart. They started dating and all was good, until the news of her moving. Her dad got a new job that required the to move. Everyone was sad upon hearing the news, but she assured she would contact them everyday, and she kept that promise. She called, texted, FaceTime every chance she got. She continued to be in a relationship with Félix, even with the long distance. However, she started to change. Bridgette started to contact them less, and when she did, she looked tired. She had gotten paler, weaker, less… happy. Everyone voiced their concerns, especially Félix, but she shot them all down with responses like 'I'm ok', 'Don't worry' or 'I'm fine'. It was like this for a few weeks until one day he unexpectedly got a call from Bridgette. He was with Alec when he picked up. And that's when he heard the crying. She was sobbing on the phone speaking incoherent words. Félix and Alec tries to calm her down and reasure while figuring out what happened. The only words they could decipher were: hurts, pushing, alone, lies, and bully. Bully. Félix seethed with anger upon hearing that word. Alec tried to calm her down while getting more information out of Bridgette, but she hung up before they got any answers. They worried the whole day, wondering what happened? What was going on? The next day Félix got another phone call, but it wasn't from Bridgette, it was her mother. Bridgette had committed suicide that day. Bridgette was dead. Everything felt apart, everyone fell apart. Allegra and Alan cried for everyday, Claude didn't smile for days, while Anais refused to talk to anyone, and Félix…. He was heartbroken. The one girl he felt like he would spend his life with, was gone. Even though Félix took some hard hits, it was Alec who was the most affected by her death. He was friends with her long before any of the others, he was the one who introduced her to them he saw her as a second sister. His health deteriorated, he stopped going to therapy, he stopped taking his anxiety pills. Two weeks after Bridgette's death, Félix found him on the steps of his house, crying, clutching his head in agony. His anxiety getting the better of him, as the negative thoughts swirled through his mind. ‘I should’ve been there for her.’ ‘I should’ve pried about what was going on’ ‘I should’ve known’ ‘I should’ve helped her’ ‘I failed her’. Thoughts like those spiraled in his mind for the past two weeks. He blamed him himself for her death. Like he was the one who killed her. That was the day he reached the red zone, the danger zone. After that day Alec was monitored like a hawk, he went back to therapy and always had someone watching him take his pills. He was borderline depressed during this time, but through excessive therapy and the love and support from his friends and family, he was able to manage it. It was also around the time they stopped mentioning Bridgette, afraid he might relapse.

Félix stared at the sullen looking Alec.

“Alec-”

“Stop. I’m not going to relapse, I’m in a healthy headspace right now, well, healthier,” he interrupted. “I don’t want to pretend as if she never existed Félix, like she wasn’t a big part of our lives.” he whispered. “She died a tragic death, and that’s awful. No one should be in that much pain that they would rather die. No one should feel like they don’t belong in this world. No one.”

It was quiet for a moment before he continued speaking.

“But we shouldn’t just focus on that dark part of her life, we should focus on the happy moments. And before you say anything, we are not going to ignore the fact she commited suicide. That’s not fair to her, to pretend as if she wasn’t suffering the last few moments of her life. But that shouldn’t be the only memory we have of her, we have millions have happy memories, happy moments with her. Let’s try to remember those too.”

By the end of his speech Félix was crying. It had been over a year and he still hadn’t properly mourned for her, let it truly sink in, trying to keep everyone together not realising he was slowly falling apart. Alec gave him a little half hug as Félix cried. They stood their until Félix stopped crying. He was exhausted.

“Let’s go back to bed,” Alec suggested. “It’s... 5:52 and I can guarantee that the others won’t wake up for another four to five hours.”

Félix nodded in agreement as they made their way back to Marinette’s room.

“Oh and Félix?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s your fault as much as it’s my fault for her death. It’s no one’s fault”

Félix looked up at Alec, and Alec looked back down on Félix, before opening the hatch and silently entered Marinette’s room. 

Félix stood there looking up at the closed hatch. Everything Alec said rang true. Except for one thing. There was someone at fault. The bully. It’s been a year and still, no one knew who was responsible. 

He finally entered the room and tiptoed back to his spot. He laid there thinking. About all the what ifs. 

What if they noticed sooner?

What if they were there?

What if she was never bullied?

What if she never moved to Italy?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to update. It's longer than my other chapters since I had a lot to write about. I honestly don't know what to write in here, and I'm sorry if the chapter was a little dark. I'm in one of those moods and I kind of took it out on this chapter. If you have any criticism, please write in the comments, and if this chapter was too much, I can rewrite it when my state of mind is better. I'd probably scratch the whole chapter if that was the case. Thank you.


	6. Bragging Rights

Previously: 

_ What if they noticed sooner? _

_ What if they were there? _

_ What if she was never bullied? _

_ What if she never moved to Italy? _

Félix woke up to the smell of bacon and pancakes. He sat up and looked around, not a single person in sight. He yawned as he walked down the slanted ladder. When he reached the kitchen everyone, still in their pajamas, were eating and talking while Tom and Sabine was cooking breakfast. 

“What up buttercup?” Anais yelled from the dining table

“You sleep well sleeping beauty?” Claude joked, mouth full of food.

He scowled at the two, it was too early for their antics. He looked at the microwave’s clock, 10:56. Nevermind. Alan and Allegra greeted him as they got a second helping of food. He looked around the room and made eye contact with Alec. Alec gave a weak wave and smile, memories from the night before flashed through his mind, he responded back with a small nod.

“Morning Félix!” exclaimed Marinette, standing up from her seat and walked towards him. “I hope we didn’t wake you up. Would you like to eat anything? Pancakes? Bacon? Eggs? Oh, we also have coffee if you want.”

His head shot up at the word coffee. Marinette giggled as she poured him some coffee in white and rainbow polka dotted mug and handed it to him. He grabbed it thankfully and took a sip. He moaned as the bitter sweet taste washed over his mouth.

“Oh god please marry me,” he said shocking himself, Marinette, and everyone else in the Quantic squad.

Marinette was stunned at first, a blush dusted on her face but quickly composed herself and let out her inner Ladybug.

“Isn't it a little soon for that? At least take me to dinner first,” she said teasingly, booping his nose.

He sputtered at her response.

“M-maybe I will!” He shot back, blush spreading from his face to his neck.

“Ok, I’m free on Sunday. Does around, let’s say seven, sound good to you?” she asked her face leaning close to his. Close enough to smell the mint from her toothpaste.

“Y-yeah,” he whispered.

“Good, can’t wait,” she said cheekily and went back to eating her breakfast leaving the blushing boy in the kitchen. 

Everyone gaped at Marinette. Looking at Félix, then at Marinette, then back at Félix. A mix of groans and cheers filled the room, money started to be passed around. 

Félix regained his composure and glared at the group of friends, excluding Marinette.

“Did you guys seriously make bets?” he said with a scowl.

“Uh, duh,” Anais said as if it was obvious, collecting five dollars from Claude, while handing Alec a twenty. “Also, why couldn’t you have man up and ask out Marinette? Not that I’m not proud of you kitten, you got game.” Anais praised, Marinette smiled in response. “But now I’m down twenty dollars.”

“Sis we’re rich, the cash is just a formality,” Alec stated, waving the twenty while he received a ten from Allegra and a five from Alan. “The real prize are the bragging rights.”

Félix looked at Alec and let his words sink when it dawned on him.   
“Wait you betted against me?” Félix asked, betrayed by the only person in the group, besides Marinette, he could stand.

“Well, technically no, I just knew Marinette has more guts than you when it comes to stuff like this and betted that you were too wimpy to make the first move,” Alec explained. “Hmm, maybe I did bet against you.”

Félix scowled deepened.

“I hate you all,” he said as he stomped to Marinette’s room, coffee in hand.

“I’ll go check on him,” Marinette said as she walked back to her room.

“Ah, kids are funny,” Tom laughed as the kids continued to pass around money.

“Tom?”

“Yes sweetheart?”

“Hand over the five.”

“I could’ve sworn it would have taken at least another week,” he said as he handed his wife the money.

Marinette entered her room, Félix wasn’t anywhere in sight. Marinette was confused at first, but then realised he might’ve been up on the terrace. She walked out to see Félix leaning on the railing, taking in the sights.

“That was quite the exit you made,” Marinette joked as she stood beside him.

Félix looked at her from the side of his eyes, and smirked.

“That was quite the scene you made,” he fired back.

“Except it wasn’t just a scene, I really want to go out with you,” she admitted shyly.

Félix looked at the blushing girl next to him.

“You’re really something Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

She smiled, but her face soon turned somber. She thought about the last time she felt this way towards somebody, how that turned out.

"Marinette?" Félix's voice broke her out of her thoughts. "Are you all right?"

She looked up at him, his eyes filled with worry.

"I'm alright, just thinking about the last time I had a crush on someone," she said sadly. "It… It ended poorly."

"D-Do you want to talk about it?" 

Marinette looked to the distance. She didn't want to burden him with her problems. She wanted to say she was fine. But… there was something about him… something that made her want to open up. 

"His name is Adrien," she started. "And I had a huge crush on him, I was borderline psychotic when I liked him. He was sweet, caring, and even as a model, he was modest. He made me feel happy with just his presence, even if he would like me back, I would've been just happy being friends with him. To be around him. There was so much that I loved about him, and I would've done anything for him. And I did…. There was this girl, she was-is, a compulsive liar. She lied from the get go, and all my classmates believed her, except for me… and Adrien. He knew she was lying due to certain events, but when I wanted to expose her, he told me not. Told me that it would only do more harm than good, that as long as we knew, then it would've been ok. That he would stand by me." She felt tears prick her eyes. "But he was just as big a liar as she was. He left me alone, he let her hurt me, he… BETRAYED me." The tears were now falling onto to her cheeks, and rolled down her face. "Lila never liked me since I knew she was a liar, since I could've destroyed her little kingdom, so she targeted me. She kept her promise, she got all my friends, well, used to be friends, to turn on me, she isolated me… I was alone… and he did nothing to stop her. That's why I switched schools. That's why I fell out of love for Adrien."

She stood tall as she finished her story, although she felt sad, she didn't dwell on the feeling. That part of her life was over. She was moving on.

She turned to face Félix as he hugged her.

"Marinette, no matter what happens, no matter what anyone says, I, and on the behalf of the others, will never hurt you like that. We won't ever make you feel that way, nor anyone else. We'll stand by you."

Her eyes began to flood with tears, she tried to hold them back, but soon the dam broke as she let what he said sink in. She clung onto him for her dead life as her sobs wracked through her body.   
  


To say he was angry was an understatement. Every fiber of his being was boiling with red hot fury. A story, all too familiar, the lies, the isolation, the  **bully** . He hated them. He hated every single one of them. He hated that manipulative Lie-la girl, he hated the stupid lambs Marinette used to call her classmates and friends, and he especially hated that dumb model who broke her heart. Model… Teen model… A teen model named Adrien… Oh no. There was only one teenmodel in Paris named Adrien, and it was Adrien Agreste. 

'That idiot!' Félix angrily thought. The moron who broke Marinette's heart was the buffoon he calls cousin!. 'Wait until I get my hands on that nincompoop!' 

He quickly put his assassination plans in the back of his head when Marinette stilled. It seemed she had stopped crying. He loosened his hold to let her breathe. She brushed the few stray tears off her cheeks and eyes and smiled at him.

"Thank you Félix, that was something I needed to hear."

He smiled back

"You're welcome. If you ever need to talk, I'm here for you."

They started to walk towards the door when Marinette stopped him

"Oh and Félix?"

"Yes?"

"Is it ok if you don't tell the others what I told you? I don't think I'm ready to tell them."

Félix put a reassuring hand on Marinette's shoulder. 

"I wouldn't do that to you, it is your choice to who you tell and who knows."

Marinette smiled and hugged Félix again.

"Thank you," she whispered

Félix smile grew as she hugged tighter. Of course he wouldn't tell the others, if the others knew, they would have gone to her old class and immediately kill them. No. They needed a plan. He needed some time to think of a plan. A plan for the former classmates downfall and immediate destruction. So no, he won't tell them, Marinette will, and when she does… 

He smirked.

'It'll be a bloodbath.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all how's it going? So much happens in this chapter, Félix and Marinette have a date, Marinette told Félix why she left Françoise Dupont, and the fact Adrien and Félix are related! I'm debating on writing the next chapter about the date, or to just skip and do an overview. Tell me what you guys think in the comments. Thanks!


	7. Redemption

Previously:

_ He smirked. _

_ 'It'll be a bloodbath.'  _

“No… no… no…” Marinette threw two dresses and a skirt from her closet onto her clothing littered floor.

“Nothing is good enough! Why did I do this to myself? I should’ve given myself at least a week to figure out an outfit, but nope! I just had to run my mouth and give myself less than twenty-four hours to prepare, now it’s six and he’s supposed to pick me up in half an hour and I’m still not ready!” Marinette was now pacing as she ranted.

“I don’t know Marinette, I thought the black skirt with white trimmings looked nice,” Tiki said as she tried to calm the bluenette.

“It is cute, but it’s not good enough for a fancy restaurant,” Marinette pointed out.

Félix was taking Marinette to the fanciest restaurant in all of Paris, La Charlotte. Reservations for La Charlotte are near impossible, the only way to get in is if you knew the owner Charlotte, apparently Charlotte was Allegra's aunt and got them a reservation on such short notice.

"What about this one? It's really pretty." Tiki said as she picked up a dress and flew it over to Marinette.

Marinette took the dress from Tiki and inspected it. The dress was an A-line, asymmetrical, with a rich burgundy color. It had a deep V-neckline with spaghetti straps that crossed at her back. It would flow all the way down all the way to her ankles and with the cuts, would show half of her thighs.

"This is perfect!" Marinette exclaimed as she quickly changed into the burgundy dress. When she was finished changing she twirled in front of her full length mirror.

"How do I look?"

"You look amazing Marinette! You should wear it with your golden bangles!"

"Good idea Tiki."

She decided to change her usually pigtails to a high bun.

As for make-up, she went for a natural eyeshadow, a light blush and a bright rose red for the lipstick.

"Marinette! Félix's here!" Sabine called.

"Coming maman!" She quickly put on two-inched, black strap ons and grabbed a black handbag for Tiki.

“Wait!” Cried the red kwami.

“What’s wrong Tiki?” Marinette asked with worry.

“I just want to say... I’m glad you’re finally in a good place again… at school, with your friends, with your mental state… I’m just… happy that you’re happy.”

Marinette looked at the goddess of creation, stunned expression at first, but quickly melted into a smile.

“Thanks Tiki.”

“Marinette, don’t make the poor boy wait any longer!”

“I’m coming, I’m coming!”

She rushed down the stairs, nearly falling on her face. Finally reaching the bakery, where she saw her parents and Félix were waiting.

“Oh my, just look at you, you’re absolutely stunning!” Sabine gushed.

“My baby is growing up so fast,” Tom said, wiping away fake tears.

“Maman, Papa, please stop.” she said, embarrassed as she blushed.

She looked at Félix as her parents, to her horror, continued to gush. He was wearing a three piece suit and black tie. His hair was styled like usually, slicked back. He looked good.

‘That’s the understatement of the year,’ she thought.

He was staring, not saying anything. She felt the spike in her nerves. Did she look weird? Was the lipstick too much?

“H-Hi Félix,” she greeted as she tried to calm her nerves.

Her voice snapped him out of his trance and he blushed.

“Good evening Marinette, you look…”

Her anxiety spiked again as he trailed.

Weird?

Stange?

Ugly?

“... gorgeous,” he breathed out, voice filled with love and adoration

All thoughts seized to a halt. She blushed.

“T-Thank you… You look really good too,” she whispered.

“Thanks…”

They stood there, for what felt like an eternity, blushing messes. Until Félix finally regained his composure and cleared his throat.

“We better get going, we don’t want to be late.”

“Of course!” She nearly shouted. 

“Oh wait, before you kids go, is it alright if we get a picture?” Sabine asked.

They looked at each other, then smiled.

“Of course Sabine.”

They stood side-by-side, his hand on her waist as she leaned in close to him.

“Thank you! Now go! You kids have fun! Oh, and Félix?” Sabine gestured for him to lean down to her face. “Hurt my daughter and you’ll be mince pie.”

He looked at her, petrified, then at Tom, noticing he now had a roller in his hand. Eyes saying a million words.

“Maman! Papa!” Marinette cried, horrified by her parents threat.

“O-Of course,” he said, feeling intense fear, but then looked serious. “I would never hurt her in any way. She’s precious to me and I will protect her at any cost.”

Marinette felt her face heat up at his words, while her parents, at first shocked by his words, but soon smiled, pride filling their chests.

“Thank you, it’s good to know that we’re leaving her in good hands.” Tom said with a smile.

They said good-bye as they left, Félix ushering her to the limo.

Their drive to the restaurant was filled with banter and laughter. When they finally arrived to La Charlotte, Félix stopped Marinette before she could get out.

“Before I forget, I got you something.” Félix said, as he fished a jewelry box out of one of the car’s many compartments. He handed it to her.

“You shouldn’t have, I didn’t even get you anything.” Marinette said guitily.

“I didn’t give it to you because I was expecting something in return. I gave it to you because I wanted to.”

She looked at him, then back at the box. She opened it slowly, then gasped. It was a gold, thin chain necklace with thin strings of gold wrapped around a ruby, encrusted with little diamonds at top.

“Oh Félix… it’s beautiful,” she said with awe. Hand close to her chest. No one had ever given her anything like it.

“I’m glad you like it, I was worried that you might’ve not liked it.”

“Thank you…” she breathed out. “I love it…” 

She looked up at him, smile wide. She picked up the necklace from the box.

“Is it alright if you help me put it on?” holding the necklace out toward him.

“O-Of course.” he stuttered as he took the necklace from her.

She turned around, he unclasped the necklace and put it around her neck. He clasped the necklace, fingers lingered on her neck before he dropped them to his side.

She turned around and smiled.

“You look amazing in it,” he said with a warm smile.

“Thank you,” both smiling at each other. “Now let’s head in, I heard many great things from Allegra about the shrimp.”

They exited the car side-by-side, his hand on her back as they walked towards the restaurant.

“Dupain-Cheng?” A voice called out, Marinette turned her head to see Chloé.

“Chloe? What are you doing here?”

“My father took me here to eat, I was just leaving. What about you? You do realise that only people who know the owner can get in right?” She said in a mocking tone.

“As a matter of fact, we know the owner’s niece,” Félix chimned in. 

Chloé finally noticed the boy next to Marinette and scowled.

“Cúpla.”

“Bourgeois.”

Marinette looked at the two of them as the scowled at each other.

“Wait, you two know each other?”

Chloé scoffed.

“Of course we do, especially since he’s cousins with-”

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” Félix cut in. 

Chloé glared at him for a moment, but waved it off.

“So what are you two doing together? Are you on a date or something?” Chloé asked, ignoring Félix’s question.

“As a matter of fact, we are.” Marinette said, head held high.

“Oh…” Chloe trailed off. “Well that’s good, I’m glad you found someone.”

“Chloe if you’re just going to be rude- Wait what?” shocked by what Chloé said.

Chloé looked at her shoes, her “rich girl” demeanor slipping away. 

“It’s just…You’re both good people, and you deserve each other. You deserve happiness with each other.” Chloé whispered. “It’s also a good thing that you got over Adrien- And before you say anything, I’m not saying this just because it takes out a rival, I’m also over Adrien. After everything with Lie-la, my feelings for him quite literally died. That boy needs to seriously grow a backbone.”

Marinette looked at Chloé, still shocked, and by the looks of it, so was Félix.

“Th-Thank you Chloé… I hope you can also find someone.”

Chloé scoffed again as she threw her hair back.

“Of course I will, I’m Chloé Bourgeois, anyone would be lucky to have me.”

Marinette smiled.

“Of course they would… Well… good night.” she said as she and Félix continued walking to the restaurant.

“Wait!” Chloé called.

Marinette and Félix turned towards her.

“I-I just wanted to say I’m sorry… for everything. For bullying you… Saying all of those nasty things… For being just… awful.” she whispered. “And I’m especially sorry for letting Lila do all of those things to you. I should’ve done something. Even if I didn’t actually instigate anything, I did nothing to stop her. I didn’t stop her from hurting you. And because of her… Because I didn’t do anything...” Chloé was now choking back the sobs. “I’m so sorry.”

Marinette looked at the crying girl in front of her. She slowly walked over to her and hugged her. Chloé freezed under her grip. 

“Thank you Chloé. Thank you for apologizing. It doesn’t make up for what you did, or didn’t do… but it’s a start… And I hope one day, we could be friends.”

Chloé stood there, but slowly raised her arms and hugged her back. They pulled away after a minute.

“Ok, now that the sob fest is over get back to your date. I’m sure that weirdo you call a date is getting impatient now.” Chloé said as she wiped the tears from her eyes.

Marinette giggled. She was still Chloé.

“Oh and Marinette… I would like that… the whole… being friends thing.” Chloé said shyly. 

Marinette smiled.

“Me too. 

She waved Chloé good-bye and walked back to Félix.

“Well that was surreal, who knew that witch could even say the word sorry.”

“Be nice, she’s trying.” Marinette said as she stared as Chloé entered a limo.

Félix smiled at the girl before him. He was so lucky to have her.

“Well, shall we?” He gestured to the doors as he held out his arm.

She linked her arm with his.

“We shall.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay Chapter Seven!!!! And is that Chloé redemption I see? I think it is! Sorry that this chapter doesn't show the actually date, but I had a change of plans we I thought of something new. Next chapter you'll see the actually date! Thank you for reading, and any criticism, please leave in the comments.


	8. Canceled

Previously:

_ “Well, shall we?” He gestured to the doors as he held out his arm. _

_ She linked her arm with his. _

_ “We shall.” _

When they entered the restaurant, Marinette looked in awe at the fantasy-like scene. La Charlotte looked as if a fairytale had come to life. The ceiling had a layer of woven branches and white flowers. Moonlight flowed through the branches due to the skyline and was brightly lit from lanterns and fairy lights. A string quartet and piano sat in the center of the room, playing somber music. She noticed the guests consisted of famous movie stars, musicians, and models, with a few business men, except for one table with a group of people wearing trench coats and hats. Marinette waved them off as celebrities afraid of press popping out. 

They walked over to the concierge.

"Table for two under the name Cúpla, Félix."

The concierge looked through his book of guests name, then called a waiter to usher them to their table. When they sat down, a young woman wearing a black pencil dress, with bright red hair came over to their table, smile on her face.

"We'll isn't it the cute couple my niece has been talking about! 'Legra was kidding when she said you two were the cutest couple in the world!"

Félix and Marinette stared at the woman in confusion. Who was this woman and how did she know them? It was until they notice the name she just said, the one who told her about them. 'Legra. Allegra. This was Allegra's aunt and the owner of the restaurant they were currently in, Charlotte. Marinette blushed when she realised what she said. Couple. It was only their first date, and she wasn’t sure if they could be classified as a couple yet.

"Good evening ma'am, thank you for the reservations, we hope it wasn't an inconvenience," Félix greeted as he turned to face the bubbly woman.

"Oh it was no problem sugar. I'd do anything for 'Legra and her friends. Especially ones she speaks so highly about," Charlotte said, as she brought her hands to her hips. "Also, you can just call my Charlotte, calling me "ma'am" makes me feel old." 

"Of course… Charlotte." Félix said warily. He was never comfortable with calling adults by their first names, he always felt like it was rude.

"I hope you like the restaurant, I designed it myself"

"I absolutely love it! It's like I'm in a scene from a story book!" Marinette praised.

Charlotte beamed at the praise.

"Why thank you! I'm glad you like it, at first I was going to go for an underwater design but-"

"What do you mean you don't have my table?!" Am angry voice yelled from the front. It was a middle aged man and was balding. A younger looking woman stood next to him, clearly looking uncomfortable. 

"I'm sorry sir it seems we accidentally double booked, we apologize for the inconvenience and we’ll try to get you a table as soon as possible, but it may take up to an hour." The concierge said, body shaking with fear. 

"Unbelievable! Unbelievable! You are all imcompitent! Absolutely incompitent! I demand my table now!”

Charlotte’s face contorted as she saw witnessed the scene.

“I’m sorry kids, but I’ll be right back, I need to resolve the situation,” she said to Marinette and Félix with a smile and warm eyes, but turned into a cold stare and frown as she walked over to the conflict.

“I’m sorry, but is there a problem? Adam?” She asked with a fake smile.

The middle aged man, Adam, whiped his head to Charlotte, slightly composing himself. Slightly.

“Ah Charlotte, it’s a good thing you’re here, this imbecile that you hired screwed up my reservations. Honestly, you should fired deadweights like him.”

Her mouth twitched, but she continued to put out her poker face.

“Well I’m sorry that happened, but like he said, the table will take at least an hour, and we can not change the fact that it will take an hour, but as an apology, we’ll make your meal entirely free.” 

Adam smirked at the sound of the free meal.

“Good, we’ll be back in an hour-”

“But only if you apologize to Louis.”

Adam and the concierge, who Marinette assumed as Louis looked shocked.

“What?”

“Apologize to Louis, the concierge you rudely called an “imbicile”.''

His face went red with anger.

“Why should I?! It was his fault in the first place!”

“I understand that, he made a mistake… But that doesn’t give you the right to yell at him and insult him.”

“I will do no such thing! I will not bow my head to someone as low as him,” he growled.

“Just apologize,” the young woman he brought pleaded. “You were being a little rude, just apologize then we can come back and eat. Please-”

“Shut up! You have no say in this! As for you!” He pointed to Louis. “I will never apologize to someone as lowly as you.”

Charlotte poker face fell and she glared.

“Then you are no longer welcome here, and as for our friendship, consider it as if it never happened. Now, if you please, leave.”

“You can’t do this to me! You can’t just kick me and pretend like you don’t know me!”

“Come on, let’s just go,” the woman was now pulling at his arm.

“Shut up!” He slapped the woman across the face.

Charlotte was now seeing red.

“Security!”

Two tall and bulky picked up Adam and escorted him out as he thrashed and yelled.

“Are you alright?” Charlotte asked the woman, worry in her eyes.

“Yeah, thank you,” the woman smiled as she held her cheek.

“Here, let me get you some ice Ms… ?”

“Angel, My name is Angel.”

“Fitting name for someone as angelic as you.”

Angel blushed as Charlotte took her hand and escorted her away.

“Well… that was quite the scene.”

Félix’s voice broke her out of her trance.

“Yeah, I hope she’s ok.” Marinette said with worry.

Félix smiled. She was too kind.

“She’s with Charlotte, she’s in good hands.” 

“Hi there my name is Danielle and I’ll be your waiter tonight. What can I get you guys to drink-?”

“Akuma!”

The sound of chairs scraping the floor and screams filled the room as a red beam started hitting people, causing them to freeze and a red circle with a line running across it to appear on their chest.

I am Canceled! You cancel my plans, I cancel yours!” The akuma, Canceled, was wearing a blood red suit, skin coal black, and eyes bleached white. He started wrecking the restaurant, throwing tables and chairs randomly.

“Goddammit,” Marinette cursed under her breath.

Félix grabbed her wrist.

“We have to hide! The akuma is blocking the exit and-”

“Watch out!”

A voice screamed as the body of the mystery person knocked them out of the way of a flying table. They crashed onto the floor. The bruised bodies groaned. Marinette looked about to see it was one of the trench coats people, hat forgotten and on the floor.

“Anais!?”

Marinette could spot the bright red hair a mile away. 

“Anais? Who’s Anais? Nope, don’t know a Anais!”

As she rambled, Marinette and Félix saw the other trench coats people running towards them, who they recognize as their friends.

“Wait were you guys spying on us?”

“No…” 

“Of course not….”

“I wouldn’t call it spying… “ 

“We know the time AND location of your date, how do expect us not to spy on you?”

“Enough!” Alec cut in as he helped Félix and Marinette up. “There is a literal akuma rampaging in this very room, you can scold us later, but now, just run!”

He said as a chair flew close by them.

They ran towards the kitchen, until Marinette paused.

“Marinette what are you doing?! We have to hide!” Alan yelled.

“I- Uh - I gotta go to the restroom?”

“Seriously?! NOW?!” Claude yelled.

Marinette dashed to the restroom, ignoring her friends worried shouts.

“Why now? It could be any other day of the week, but no! It had to happen during my date!” Marinette angrily muttered as she rushed towards the bathroom. When she was out of sight Tiki flew out her bag.

“Marinette we have to hurry, I don’t think Chat will be here for a while.”

“You’re right. Tiki, spots on!”

She transformed, hair changing back to its usual pigtails, and rushed back into the chaos. The restaurant was now a mess, broken chairs and tables littered the floor, with a handful of frozen people scattered across the room. The akuma noticed her right away and snarled.

“Ladybug! Give me your miraculous!”

“How about, no,” she said as she dodged a red beam.

She continued to dodge the beams as she moved the frozen civilians to a safer place. She was starting to feel tired when Chat Noir finally showed up.

“Oh thank god! I’m so glad you’re here, his powers is freezing people, canceling any further plans.”

“Ok, what’s the plan- are you wearing lipstick?” He paused for a second before dodging another beam. She brought her hand to her lips. She forgot she was wearing makeup.

“Um, yeah… I was in the middle of something,” she said as she backflipped away from a beam. “I’m not really sure where the akumatized-”

“What were you doing that required makeup?”

“Not important, but seriously we need to hurry up and find-”

“I mean were you in the middle of something?” He cut her off again. “The only thing I can think of is a date. Were you on a date?” He said, panic in his voice.

“Look Chat, can we talk about this later?” She asked, slightly irritated.

“It’s just I never seen you wear makeup before,” he said with a pout. 

She sighed in annoyance. They hide behind the bar to form a plan.

“The man was akumatized when the owner of the restaurant kicked him out, but I don’t think there were any objects near them that could’ve been the akumatised object-”

“Wait you were here before the akuma attack? So you were on a date!”

“Chat!” Ladybug growled, now angry.

“It’s his watch.”

Both heros turned to see a woman crouching next to them.

“Charlotte? You should be hiding in a safer place, the akuma will be targeting you.” Ladybug said with concern.

“And what do you mean by “it’s his watch”? How do you know?” Chat Noir questioned.

“I like giving gifts to my friends who come here for the first time, and the gift I gave him was the watch he’s wearing right now,” Charlotte explained.

They both peaked over the bar to look at the raging akuma. Ladybug finally noticed the watch on his wrist, it was the only thing on his body that wasn’t red. 

“Thank you Charlotte, but you seriously need to hide somewhere safe, it’s dangerous.”

She shook her head.

“I need to make sure all my customers and employees are safe, their safety is my priority.” Her face serious. 

Ladybug smiled at the woman.

“That’s very considerate of you, but it’ll be safer you in kitchen. I already took care of the civilians, and your niece and her friends are in the kitchen. You need to be there with them.”

Charlotte’s mouth turned into a thin line, before she slumped her shoulders and reluctantly agreed.

“Chat distract the akuma while I get Charlotte to a safer place.”

He nodded and jumped out of their hiding spot, hitting the akuma with his baton. 

“Let’s go.”

She picked up Charlotte and quickly dashed for the kitchen.

“Auntie!” A voice called as she put Charlotte down on the kitchen tiles. It was Allegra.

“Ladybug have you seen our friend Marinette and Félix? Marinette went to the bathroom, and Félix went after her,” Alan said, worry written all over his face.

Marinette paled.

“He did what?!”

“Please, can you check on them to make sure they’re ok?” Asked Claude.

“And please bring them back so I can strangle those idiots.” Alec cut in, face hard and serious.   
She gulped at the threat. She was so dead.

“Of course, but for now please continue to hide, and don’t leave the kitchen.”

She rushed out of the kitchen to see Chat Noir still distracting the akuma. She ran to the bathrooms to see Félix pacing.

“Ladybug! Have you seen a blue haired girl wearing a reddish dress? She ran to the bathroom and now I can’t find her!” His voice filled with concern.

A warm smile bloomed on her face. She has such wonderful and caring people in her life.

“She’s fine, I brought her to a safe place in a separate place, but for now I need you to stay low while Chat and I take care of the akuma.”

He looked reluctant, wanting to be with Marinette to know for sure she’s truly safe. But nodded, the quicker they deevilize the akuma, the quicker they’re all safe.

She went back to the fight to see Chat Noir struggling the fight off the akuma. The akuma hit his baton, it flew across the room .

“Do you have a plan M’lady, because I don’t think I can hold him off much longer!” Trying to dodge the beams again.

“Don’t worry, we’ll end this soon! Lucky Cha-”

“Ladybug look out!” 

A beam was coming straight at her. She didn’t have time to jump out of the way. She braced for the impact when she noticed a body infront of her blocking the beam.

“Félix!” She screamed.

His body frozen in place, face filled with determination.

Another beam was about to be aimed at her when a voice caught his attention.

“Hey ugly over here!” Claude shouted as he zig-zagged across the room.

“No! Over here!” Alan called from the opposite end.

“Hey slowpoke come and get me!”

“Betcha you can’t catch me!”

Claude, Alan, Allegra, and Anais came out of hiding and started running and shouting for the akuma’s attention.

Both heros gaped at the sight, before quickly collecting themselves.

“Chat hurry and destroy the watch!” She called from her spot.

Chat Noir rushed over to Cataclysm the akumatized object, only to be knocked onto the ground. 

“I have enough of you pesky kids! Give me the miraculous now!” He shouted as he recharged his beam to hit the pinned down Chat Noir.

“Chat!” She ran over.

The beam was about to hit him when it was redirected. Alec had hit the akuma with the discarded baton.

“Goddammit! Goddamn you all! I swear to god all of you have a death wish or something! Rushing into an akuma attack! I am this close to having a breakdown!” Alec shouted with frustration.

The akuma growled and got up, ready to attack Alec.

“Nope!” He yelled as he hit the akuma across the face with the baton. “I am not in the mood for this!” 

Chat Noir quickly got up and ripped off the watch.

“Cataclysm!” The watch broke, letting the akuma free.

“It’s time to de-evilize!” Ladybug threw her yo-yo and captured the purple butterfly, freeing it when it was white and purified. “Bye-Bye little butterfly! Now to fix everything, Lucky Charm!”

A white light flowed through the room, fixing all that was broken and unfreezing all the victims.

Félix collapsed onto the floor, clutching his head. Ladybug rushed over to check on him.

“Are you ok?” 

“Yeah… I’m fine… where’s Marinette is she alright?”

Marinette smiled.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure she’s still hiding.”

“I swear to god I’m going to kill you all.” Ladybug and Félix turned to see Alec yelling at the others. “We had one job. One Job! To stay in the kitchen while Ladybug and Chat Noir fought off the akuma, but nooooooo. You just had to go out while the akuma was still active!”

“We wanted to help!”

“She was about to get hit by that weird beam!”

“Don’t interrupt me,” he growled, silencing the group. “Yes you guys helped but you still endangered yourselves. You could've gotten seriously hurt because of your reckless decisions. And speaking of reckless decisions, where is Marinette?! I swear if that girl is hurt I’m going to end someone.”

“We don’t know.”

“I’m sure she’s fine.”

“Everything was reseted before the akuma attack, so I’m sure she’s not hurt.”

“Alec what level are you at right now?” 

Everyone looked at the angry boy with concern instead of fear now, well there was still fear, but with concern. Alec was a relatively chill person, but when his anxiety spiked, it was like a switch was flipped.

“A fucking seven, but that’s not the point! You all need to be aware of the situation, what you guys did was not safe. What if you guys actually got hurt?” His voice now filled with exhaustion and concern.

They looked at their shoes, guilt written all over their face as Chat cleared his throat.

“Um… can I have my baton back?” Chat Noir asked warily.

Alec’s head along with his murderous glare, turned to the hero. Chat Noir flinched at the hard stare. Alec’s shoulders slumped as he started to calm down again.

“Yeah, sure, sorry,” he said, hand pinching the bridge of his nose as he handed him back his baton.

“I’m going to go now M’lady…” Chat said warily. “And enjoy the rest of your date.” 

She looked at the cat themed hero as he left. His ears slumped on his head told her that he wasn’t happy.

“I have to go too, thank you guys. I could use your help more often,” she said with a smile.

They all beamed at the praise except for Alec who grimaced.

“Please don’t encourage them.”

She giggled then left. Finding a secluded place to detransform. She quickly rushed back to the group.

“Hey guys are you ok?”

“Marinette!” Félix ran over to her, putting her in a bone crushing hug while the others came, not far behind. 

“Are you ok?”

“Where were you?”

“Did you get hurt?”

“Guys I’m fine, Ladybug saw me and took me to a safe place to hide,” she smiled at her friends as they continued to dot on her.

“Yes Marinette, I am so glad you were not hurt by your own reckless decision,” Alec said with a tight smile.

She froze at the sight of the angry boy. 

“I had to use the restroom?” She repeated her weak excuse from earlier.

Everyone was quiet as the two had a staring contest. Alec sighed.

“We’ll talk later, that includes you Félix,” he said with a pointed glare. “But for now, you should probably continue your date. And the rest of you, we should probably help Allegra’s aunt calm the situation down.”

They finally registered the other customers shouts and the akumatized victim, who was thrashing against securities hold again.

“That’s true, I should probably tell my aunt I’m ok,” Allegra said sheepishly. “See you guys tomorrow at school!”

They all left, leaving Marinette and Félix alone. 

“So… do you want to get out of here? I’m not really in the mood for fine dining anymore.” Marinette suggested.

Félix looked at the girl and smiled.

“Where do you have in mind?”

“A picnic in the moonlight, it’s like we took a scene from a cheesy rom-com and plopped it in front of us,” Félix joked.

Marinette giggled. They went back to the bakery for picnic supplies and after they reassured her parents she was ok after the akuma attack, they went to the park. As Félix laid their blanket on the grass, Marinette took out the food they had brought; sandwiches, a thermos filled with warm soup and a few baked goods for desert. They sat in silence for a moment before Félix spoke up.

“I’m sorry how our date started off.” 

Marinette looked at him surprised.

“There’s no need to apologize,” she said quickly. “You had no idea there would be an akuma attack.”

“I know… but I wanted this night to be perfect for you.” he whispered, sullen look on his face. “You only deserve the best.”

She looked at the blonde, a sudden urge to cry. She wrapped her arms around him.

“Thank you Félix…”

“For what?” He asked, confused.

“For everything… everything you’ve done that lead up to this moment and for everything you will do in the future. Because you are one of the best things that has happened to me.”

She brought her face up to look at him. They were inches apart. He stared at her as be brought a hand up to her face. She leaned in closer, now only an inch from his face. He leaned closer, their lips barely touching. They stared at each other, before he leaned in a little more and kissed her. It felt like a burst of fireworks exploded in their chests as they kissed. They slowly pulled away after what felt like an eternity. She smiled. He smiled back. They fully pulled away, sitting side-by-side again in blissful silence.

“Have I ever told you about the time Anais set Claude on fire?” 

Marinette, shocked at first, but then smiled.

“-And then the goat rammed into Anais causing her to knock over the candle, and it hit Claude. His shirt started to catch fire and he started screaming, running around, causing everything else to set fire. Allegra and Alan were trying to stop the fire from spreading, while Anais and I tried to stop Claude from setting anything else on fire, then we had Alec, just sitting on the floor feeding the goat carrots, pretending as if half the room and his friend wasn’t on fire”

Marinette was clutching her stomach as she laughed, tears in the corner of her eyes. They had finished most of the food as they laughed and bantered. 

“Where did he even get the carrots?” Marinette asked between her laughter.

“I have no idea, no one knows, he always brings out these random objects out of nowhere, or just appear out of thin air,” Félix said, smile wide.

Their laughter finally subsided after a minute, as they sat in comfortable silence.

“Well, I better get you home, don’t want your parents to worry,” he said as he stood up, offering a hand to Marinette. She smiled and accepted it. As she stood up she shivered, finally feeling the night’s cold bite. She was laughing so much, she didn’t register the cold breeze. Félix immediately noticed her shivering and wrapped his blazer around her shoulders. She gave him a grateful look and started to help clean up. They continued their banter and laughter as they walked until they reached the bakery. 

“Thank you Félix, I had a wonderful night.”

“Me too, good night Marinette,” he said before picking up her hand, bring it to his face and kissed it. She blushed. He waved as he walked to the limo that was waiting for him. She went inside the bakery with a content look on her face, her parents there to greet her.

“Hi sweetie how was your date?” Her mother asked.

“Well, your do-over date,” Tom said with a chuckle.

“Absolutely amazing,” she said with a blissful sigh.

She told her parents “good night” and went to her room, flopping onto her bed, smile stretched across her face.

“You seem happy Marinette,” Tiki giggled as she flew to her chosen.

“I am, I love everything about him. I haven’t felt anything like this before, not even with Adrien.”

Tiki smiled at how happy her chosen was. 

“I’m happy that you’re happy.”

Marinette smiled at the kwami.

“Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey sorry I didn't post yesterday! I have no excuse except I didn't feel like writing! I hoped you enjoy it, and we have our first akuma attack in this fic! Will there be more? Probably! And by probably I mean yes!


	9. Everything is going to hell

Previously: 

_ Tiki smiled at how happy her chosen was.  _

_ “I’m so happy that you’re happy.” _

_ Marinette smiled at the kwami. _

_ “Me too _

* * *

Marinette woke up on cloud nine. Feelings from the night before lingered. Her heart light with a small hop in her step as she walked to school. She saw Félix waiting for her at the front gates and her heart soared. She was wearing the necklace he gave her under her uniform. They walked together to class, a smile on her face. She continued to have a chipper mood until her third period. As student’s started to sit down, everyone’s phone chimned, an alert from the Ladyblog. There was an akuma at Françoise Dupont. Her teacher, M. Caron, sighed.

“Alright students, let’s continue class.”

Although Arté Du Louvre was relatively the same walking distance from Marinette’s house, it was in the opposite direction of Françoise Dupont, giving it some distance from the usually akumatized school and allowing them to continue their lessons. Marinette knew she had to hurry. She had to find a secluded place to transform and travel to her old school, leaving her partner to fend off the akuma for almost twenty minutes, thrity if she’s unlucky. Her hand shot up.

“Yes Mlle. Dupain-Cheng?” 

“May I use the restroom?”

“Not now, even if we are a good distance from the akuma attack, it is safer to be in a classroom with an adult instead of wandering the halls if the akuma does, for some reason, attacks the school.”

Marinette chewed on her thumbnail. She had to figure out a way to get out, and quickly. She raised her hand again.

“Yes Mlle Dupain-Cheng?” M. Caron asked with a sigh.

“I really have to use the restroom.”

“Mlle. Dupain-Cheng you need to wait until the akuma is purified.”

“But-”

“No, buts, now please settle down.”

She slumped in her chair, Alec and Claude giving looks of concern.

She had to think of something. She had to get out of the classroom. An idea popped in her head, she groaned at it. She did not want to embarrass herself anymore then she already had, but it would get out of the classroom. She shot up hand again.

Her teacher, annoyed, but called on her.

“I need to go to the bathroom... and the nurse.” She said, blush on her face.

M. Caron looked confused at first, but then the realization struck.

“O-Of course Mlle Dupain-Cheng, H-Hurry back.”

She bowed her head and rushed out of the door, blush spreading across her face.

“Good thinking Marinette,” Tiki said quietly from her bag as Marinette groaned.

“I know, but it’s still embarrassing to imply to your teacher AND classmates that you’re on your period,” she said as she ducked in a janitor’s closet and transformed. She sped through the rooftops until she finally stood on Françoise Dupont’s roof to only abstract art running. The school was painted like a Van Gogh painting, the akuma’s body was covered with shades of blue with accents of yellow and white, it reminded her a bit of Starry Night. The akuma was using a paint brush to splatter paint, and anyone who got hit by the paint turned into abstract art.

“Get down,” a voice harshly whispered.

She yelped as she was pulled down. It was Chat Noir.

“Chat? What happened?”

“Where have you been?” He asked, ignoring her question. “I’ve been dealing with this akuma for nearly half-an-hour! Almost half the school had been turned into art!”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry I was caught in a situation and I couldn’t get out of it.”

It wasn’t technically a lie, but it wasn’t the truth either. Chat Noir sighed, he couldn’t stay angry at her for too long.

“The akuma victim is an art student who was told abstract art wasn’t real art, her akumatized object, as you can tell, is her paintbrush. I’ve been trying to take the paintbrush from her, but every time I got near her, her weird looking minions start chasing me.” 

She nodded as she started to formulate a plan.

“Not even a day and there’s another akuma, looks like Hawkmoth has a lot of time on his hands,” Chat joked, trying to lighten the mood.

She smiled at her partner.

“Yeah, it feels like he has nothing better to do. Spending all his free time trying to steal pieces of magical jewelry from kids. He needs a life”

“Or a new hobby”

They laughed.

“Ok but seriously we need to de-evilize this akuma,” she said as her laughter died down. “So here’s the plan…” 

The battle didn’t take as long as they thought. After Ladybug quickly explained her plan to him, he immediately started to distract the art minions while she retrieved the akumatized object. After they were a good distance away she jumped for the paint brush, only for the akuma to jump out of her way.

_ “Ladybug give me your miraculous!” _

_ “Why do akumas always ask for us to give them our miraculous’?” Chat yelled as he fought of the art minions. “Do they expect us to say “Oh yeah, sure! Here you go!” and just hand them over?” _

_ Ladybug rolled her eyes as she continued to fight off the akuma. She quickly used lucky charm. _

_ A painting of a portrait?” She questioned before it dawned on her. “Hey you! You disaster of an artist!” _

_ The akuma looked at her, murder in her eyes. _

_ "This is what you call art!” Holding up the portrait _ .  _ “Do you really think your weird abstract art can compare to it?” _

_ The akuma snarled. _

_ " _ _ Abstract is a misunderstood art form! It takes a lot of concentration and imagination to form actual good art!” _

_ “Oh yeah? Prove it!” _

_ “I will!” _

_ The akuma started to paint on the side of the school she didn’t paint yet. Ladybug threw her yo-yo at the distracted akuma. The yo-yo wrapped around the paintbrush and pulled it back to herself. _

_ “Hey! Give that back!” _

_ “Yeah… no,” she said as she snapped the paint brush in half. Quickly de-evilize the akuma. _

_ “Bye-bye little butterfly. Miraculous Ladybug!” She yelled, the school and citizens turned back to normal. _

_ “Good… good job… M-M’lady… Jesus there were a lot of them” Chat said, out of breath as he walked over to Ladybug. _

_ Ladybug giggled at her partner. _

_ “Pound it?” she asked as she lifted her fist towards him. _

_ He smiled. _

_ “Pound it,” he said as he fist bumped her. _

_ “Well I gotta go, bye Chaton.” _

_ “Wait!”  _

_ She paused. _

_ He hesitated. _

_ “N-Nevermind… I’ll see you later.” _

_ She paused to look at her partner. He refused to look her in the eyes. _

_ “Ok… bye kitty” _

She swung away, rushing to go back to school. When she came back third period had ended and lunch was starting. She rushed to where her friends were waiting.

“Marinette? What took so long?” Allegra asked with concern. “Are you ok… uh do you need to talk about anything in private?” Allegra was now whispering.

“Oh…” She had almost forgotten about the excuse she had given to her teacher, and technically Alec and Claude, why she had to leave. “Yeah I’m fine… I just didn’t want to go back to class after announcing something like that,” she said with a blush. “Plus I was in a good amount of pain, so I had to wait till the pain medication kicked in. 

Anais and Allegra nodded with understandment.

“Anyways,” Claude interrupted, trying to change the subject. “How was your date with Félix?” His eyebrows going up and down quickly. 

“You do realize I’m here?” Félix asked as he went over to Marinette giving a small peck on her forehead. He stood next to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

“Yeah but you won’t give us any details,” Allegra said with a pout. “I think me getting you those reservations gives us leverage. So spill!”

“Quit complaining. And as grateful as I am that you gave us those reservations, I’m not telling you anything after you guys tried to spy on us.” Félix said as he glared at the group.

“In our defense it was on impulse!” Alan defended. “Plus if you’re going to be mad at anyone be mad at Claude, it was his idea!”

“Lies!”

“Yeah! If you’re going to punish anyone it should be Claude!” Anais chimned in.

“Et tu Brute?” Claude asked, betrayal written across his face.

“Speaking of impulse, Marinette, Félix, I still need to talk to you guys about your dumb, reckless, idiotic decisions last night.” Alec said, smile on his face.

Marinette shivered at the boy in front of her while Félix tightened his grip around Marinette. 

“So what did I miss in third period?” She quickly asked, trying to change the subject and avoid Alec’s wrath. 

Everyone knew it was a bad idea to interrupt Alec so they stayed silent. She didn’t want to look him in the eyes, but when she did she couldn’t look away. They had a staring contest for what seemed like an eternity for her, but probably only a minute. 

“Nothing much,” he said with a shrug, breaking eye contact with her. She had avoided what felt like death. “M. Caron just reviewed stuff from last class and asked for volunteers for the school tour in about a month.”

“School tour?” She questioned.

“Yeah, apparently he has an old friend that works at a different school who asked him if her class could visit our school. He got permission from the principle, but she was pretty wary about letting them in, especially with their reputation. Me and another girl were voluntold to do the tour.”

She had almost forgotten about the reputation their school had. Over ninety percent of the students that went there got into good universities and had successful careers. 

“Wait, what do you mean their reputation?” She asked confused. 

“We should talk about this later,” Félix cut in quickly. “We shouldn’t talk about another school like this, even if they have a small reputation.”

“That’s the understatement of the year,” Anais scoffed. 

“Their school is known to track a lot of akumas, and Mne. Couture was worried that they might get someone akumatized.” Claude explained.

“I mean, it’s a little harsh, but she has a point,” Alan chimned in. “I’m pretty sure over half the akumas came from that school. And apparently almost the whole class got akumatized, including the teacher!”

“I heard two of them got akumatized more then once,” Allegra added.

“We’re ending this conversation,” Félix snapped a little too harshly.

Everyone gave him a weird look, except for Marinette.

Marinette had a sinking feeling as they spoke about the school. It sounded way to familiar.

“What… What school did you say it was that was coming?”

Alec turned to her, still confused at Félix’s harsh behavior.

“Françoise Dupont.”

Her heart stopped as soon as she heard the name. Françoise Dupont. She knew it had to be her old school, but she didn’t want to believe it. What’s worse is it was the one class she hoped she would never see again. The class that forced her to move in the first place. Memories of her time there purged her mind. 

_ “Jerk!” _

_ “Monster!” _

Memories of the bullying played through her head. She still remembered where all the bruises were when they tripped her or when Alya shoved her.

_ “You’re a horrible person!” _

_ “You’re nothing but a bully!” _

_ “I wish we were never friends!” _

She remembered all those tears that were shed, the times she had to quickly calm herself when she almost got akumatized. The loneliness. 

_ “Wish we were never friends!” _

_ “Wish we were never friends!” _

_ “Wish we were never friends!” _

“Marinette?”

A soft voice brought her out of her trance, it was F élix. 

“Marinette? Darling? It’s ok. They’re not here. They’re not going to hurt you,” he said as he cupped her cheeks, making sure she was looking directly at him. She felt the tears in her eyes start to slow down. She didn’t even notice she was crying.

She looked at his emerald eyes as she slowly calmed down, then hugged him. She finally noticed the concerned stares of her friends.

“Marinette? Are you ok? Did I say something that upset you? Did I DO something that upset you?” Alec asked, worry and anxiety laced in his voice.

“No!” She yelled, she flinched at her own volume before calming herself again. “Alec, I swear you didn’t, it’s just… that school you mentioned… it was my old school,” she said with a whisper.

This shocked everyone. Marinette hadn’t ever mentioned her school before. They knew it was a taboo topic so they never asked her about it.

“Marinette you don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.” Allegra said quietly. 

“No, I’ve been putting this off long enough, I need to tell you guys.”

“But do you want to tell us?” Anais asked.

Marinette stood in silence.

“You know you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Claude added.

Marinette looked at her friends. She only knew them for a week, but it was all the time she needed to know that she could trust them. And as much as her mind kept on telling her they would judge her, her heart knew they wouldn’t. They cared about her.

“Honestly… No. I don’t want to tell you guys… and it’s not because I don’t trust you guys… I just want that part of my life to be over…,” she trailed off. “But I’m still going to tell you, because you deserve to know, and I shouldn’t just ignore what happened at my school. It happened and I need to face… and part of me facing it is by me telling you guys.”

She paused for a moment before continuing. 

“I was bullied in my old school, by the class that is coming to our school. There was this girl, her name was Lila. She lied as easily as she breathed. She lied about everything, and made so many empty promises. I didn’t want her leading on my friends- I mean my old friends, so I wanted to expose her, she didn’t like that and started targeting me, bully me, and turned all of my old friends against me. They ate up everything she said, she wasn’t even a good liar, one quick google search and they would’ve known she was lying, but no. They just blindly listened to her and her lies. They listened to her talk as she made lies about me. They hurt me in so many ways, but it was their words that hurt the most. Their words plagued my mind. It was like that for a few weeks before I reached my breaking point, when I was nearly akumatized a fourth time.” Someone gasped, but she continued. “Another breaking point was there was this boy who knew Lila was lying, but did nothing. Told me to do nothing. And I did nothing. And I was broken, and he didn’t care.Those are what broke me, and that’s why a transferred schools.” When she finished she finally looked at her friends faces. They were all fuming, expect for Alec, who was eerily calm, which scared her more. It was quiet for a moment, before all hell broke loose

“They did what?!”

“How could they do that??”

“I swear I’m going to kill them!”

“Hold my hoops I’m gonna kick their butts!”

“I got your hoops Allegra, go get’em!

“Guys, guys stop!” Félix yelled.

They finally noticed their yelling had caused a scene a quiet down.

“Why aren’t you mad Fé?! You of all people should be angry!” Claude whispered/yelled. 

“I am mad, god I’m furious, but yelling will not get us anywhere, plus we should be comforting Marinette and show that we care.” 

They all turned to the blue haired girl, guilt and realization spread across their faces. They all enveloped her in a big hug, even Félix, even though he wasn’t that big on physical contact. 

“Oh my gosh Marinette we’re so sorry!”

"We just care about you so much!” 

“We’re sorry, we were only thinking about ourselves.”

“We just wanted to hurt the people who hurt you!”

“Guys stop,” Marinette giggled. “Knowing you guys are willing to kill my old class makes me immediately know that you guys care a lot.”

The lunch bell rang. 

“We better get going.” Marinette said as she started to untangle herself from the mess of limbs. Alan, Allegra, Claude, and Anais continued to dot on her while Alec and F élix trailed behind.

“You knew didn’t you? She told you before right?” Alec asked in a voice quiet enough so the others didn’t hear.

“And you didn’t?” F élix scoffed. “You didn’t do extensive research on her as soon as you meet her?”

“Of course not,” Alec snarled, before quickly calming himself down. “I respect her privacy and wouldn’t betray her trust by looking into her past. If she wanted us to know anything about her life, she would’ve told us.”

F élix looked at his friend, feeling guilty of accusing him of invading Marinette’s privacy. 

“So what’s the plan?” Alec asked, cutting the silence. 

“Plan?”

“Don’t play coy with me, I know you’ve been planning ever since Marinette told you. I don’t know when she told you, but knowing you, you’ve been extensively planning the whole time.”

Félix smirked at his friend.

“You know me too well, yeah I have my plan. And when we’re done, everything is going to hell for them.”

* * *

‘Everything was going to hell,’ Adrien thought as Mne. Bustier droned on. Apparently Ladybug had been on a date the night before. He wanted to ask her earlier, but stopped himself. For the past few weeks his lady had been more and more closed off. He tried getting her to open up but she had brushed him off. He toned down the flirting after she stopped responding to them with playful banter or annoyed eye roles which turned into tired looks and annoyed sighes. But things started to get better, she started to smile again, he was happy that he was getting the old Ladybug back, but to only find she was dating someone. Don’t get him wrong, he was still happy that she was happy again, but it hurt when he found out he couldn’t have been the one who helped her. He felt as if he failed her. What’s worse is Marinette had been missing for over a week! And no one was worried! Well, maybe Nino, he never voiced it but he could tell his friend was worried about Marinette. He tried to check on her and visit the bakery to only get the cold shoulder from her parents. The once warm hearted bakers turned bitter and cold when they saw him. He and his classmates were banned from the bakery, not like they knew. They weren’t worried about the poor girl and hadn’t checked on her. The last he heard from her was from the night before from another group of kids from the akuma attack. He quickly left not wanting to face her, even as Chat Noir. He had failed her as a friend. He left her alone when she needed him most, all because he was a coward. Even Plagg chastised him about his behavior. And now she was gone.

“Adrien? Are you ok?” A voice broke him out of his train of thought. It was Lila, he tried not to flinch away when she pulled close to him. Hugging his arm close to her body.

“I’m fine Lila,” he said as he tried to pull away from her, only for her to tighten her grip around his arm.

“Attention class, before I forget, we are visiting a very prestigious school in a month. Arté Du Louvre.”

The whole class gasped at the name. Arté Du Louvre was the best art school in all of Paris. Everyone started to chatter about their excitement. 

“Ok quiet down class, I know you’re excited but I need to inform you that there are rules when it comes to us being there, and if we break those rules, we’ll be immediately be kicked out.”

The class nodded.

“Good, now let’s get back to work.”

The class day dragged on, what was worse was Lila kept on touching him and asking him for help. He nearly let an audible sound of relief when the school day was over. He quickly packed his stuff, trying to get away from Lila.

“Adrien, would you like to come with us?” She asked getting uncomfortably close to Adrien. “Everyone in the class, well except Chloé, is going to go out to get ice cream.”

“Um… I’m sorry Lila, but I have a photo shoot soon and I don’t want to be late for it,” he quickly lied. 

She pouted.

“Ok, maybe next time.”

“Yeah… maybe next time.”

She and the rest of the class, started to leave. Everyone except for Nino. 

“Hey… can I talk to you for a quick sec?” Nino asked warily.

“Um, yeah of course,” he said as a slug his bag over his shoulder.

“I wanted talk about Marinette… and Lila…” Adrien froze at the sound of the girls’ names.

“W-What about them?”

“It’s just… I’m worried about her, Marinette I mean, not Lila. And after everything from… the whole thing with Marinette hurting Lila… I don’t know if I believe it…,” he trailed off. “I’ve known that girl for most of my life and what Lila said did not match. I couldn’t believe what she said- I can’t believe it. Before, apart of me sided with Lila, I mean why would she lie? What would she gain from lying about stuff like that?... But then another part of me sided with Marinette, the part of me who knew that sweet, caring girl. And to believe that she did all that awful things out of jealousy… that doesn't sound like her. And I’m so mad at myself for not realizing it sooner… I’ve said awful things to her… god I’m a monster…” Nino trailed, a sad look in his eyes. “But dude, you have to believe me when I say this… but I think Lila is a liar.” Nino looked at him with pleading eyes, begging for him to believe him.

“I know,” he whispered.

“What?” Nino asked, startled by his answer.

“I know… that she’s a liar… I’ve known for a while…” 

Nino looked at him, a range of emotions cycled on his face. Shock, confusion, betrayal, then it settled to anger.

“How long?”

“Nino-”

“How long?!” He yelled.

“Since the beginning, I knew she was lying from the start, I saw Ladybug confront her about lying. Lila got akumatized right after. Marinette somehow also knew she was lying and wanted to expose her but I stopped her because I was afraid Lila would get akumatized again.”

Nino stared at him frozen.

“Oh my god, that’s why Lila targeted Marinette,” realization dawned on him. Hand on his forehead slightly pushing his hat back. “That’s why she made up all that stuff about Marinette, so she would be isolated and hated to the point that no one would have believed her. And you…” He looked at Adrien with disgust. “You let her do that. You let her do that to Marinette! You let us all believe what Lila was saying was true and you let us corner her and bully her! Oh god, we bullied Marinette. I bullied Marinette! How has she not been akumatized after all the shit we put her through?!”

“Nino-”

“Shut up! Just shut up!” Nino snarled. “What I did was bad, down right cruel, but you? What you did was unforgivable. You knew and you just let it happened. You let us break her and you did nothing.”

“Nino I know what I did wasn’t right, but I’m going to fix it-”

“Fix it? Fix it?! How the hell do you expect to fix it?! You betrayed her, we all betrayed her for a bitch who couldn’t stop running her mouth!” Tears were now rolling down Nino’s face. 

“I just need to talk to her, everything will go back to normal, we’ll all be friends, she’ll understand -”

“Oh my god, you naive sheltered idiot! Don’t you understand?! We can not come back from this. We’ll be lucky to even have her forgiveness let alone her friendship!” 

“We just need to tell her we’re sorry-”

“Sorry? You think just by saying “sorry” everything will be ok?” Nino scoffed. “After the bullying, harassment, and isolation, and you think by saying sorry will fix everything?”

Nino threw his hands up in defeat.

“I’m done.”

“You’re done?” Adrien asked, confused.

“I’m done trying to get through to you, I don’t think you understand the weight of this whole situation.” Nino started to walk away from Adrien.

“Nino wait! Please! I can’t lose another friend!”

“This isn’t about you!” Nino turned to Adrien. “This is about Marinette, about how we fucked up and hurt the kindest person in the world! I just- I can’t believe you right now.”

“Nino please…”

“Don’t talk to me.”

Nino started to walk away again, leaving Adrien crying and brokenhearted. Plagg popped his head out of Adrien’s bag, looking at his chosen with sad eyes.

“Plagg, I think I fucked up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Haha sorry I didn't post for two days in a row, writers block and all. Looks like Nino found out about Lila being a liar and the fact Adrien knew! Should Nino be forgiven? I don't know, I'll leave it up to you guys. Tell me what you think, and give me reasoning why or why not Nino should be forgiven by Marinette.


	10. Take Action

Previously:

_ “Don’t talk to me.” _

_ Nino started to walk away again, leaving Adrien crying and brokenhearted. Plagg popped his head out of Adrien’s bag, looking at his chosen with sad eyes. _

_ “Plagg, I think I fucked up.” _

* * *

“Gee… ya think?” 

“Plagg…” Adrien glared at the god of destruction as tears continued to burn his eyes. He quickly went to a secluded place so he could talk to the kwami without being seen. 

“Kid, I’ve been soft on you these past few weeks-”

“Soft?” Adrien scoffed. “You’ve done nothing but yell at me for my mistakes. I get it, I screwed up.”

“No, you don’t get it.” Plagg said in a serious tone. “Kid did you even understand why headphones is as mad as he is?”

“Of course I do! He found out that I knew Lila was lying and that I didn’t do anything to expose her!”

Plagg shook his head in disappointment.

“Listen Adrien, I’m going to say this in the nicest way possible. You’re an idiot.”

“Thanks Plagg, that doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“It’s not supposed to make you feel better,” Plagg crossed his little arms as he flew face-to-face to Adrien. “It might be something you don’t want to hear, but it’s something you need to hear. Just think kid. Your dj friend just found out you just sat idly on the sidelines when a bunch of kids bullied someone you’re supposed to be friends with. He’s mad that you let them be herded like sheep by a wolf, that you didn’t do anything to stop it. He’s mad that you did nothing. And that’s almost as bad as doing something. Yes, he was apart of the problem, but he’s owning up to his mistakes and he’s trying to get better, while you, just wallow in your own self pity.”

“I’m not wallowing-”

“Just let me finish kid. You’re more focused on your relationship with the girl than actually trying to fix your mistakes.”

“You heard Nino, there’s no fixing it! I can’t fix it!”

“There’s no  **completely** fixing your relationship and her trust. You can try to duct tape the broken vase that is her trust, but there will always be cracks and missing pieces. It was completely shattered, and it can’t go back to what it once was.” Plagg sighed. “And another thing is kid, saying “sorry” doesn’t make a problem go away. You can’t just sorry to someone and that person just forgive you and everything goes back to normal. No. If someone is truly sorry, they would do something about it. Actions speak louder than words, and judging by your actions… you’re not really sorry.”

Adrien wanted to protest. He wanted to tell the kwami that he was wrong. But he couldn’t. He was right. He didn’t try hard enough to fix things, what’s worse was that he was only thinking about himself. He wanted to fix things, but for all the wrong reasons. He didn’t think about anyone else but himself. He didn’t think about his actions might affect others. How it affected his classmates. How it affected Nino. How it affected Marinette. He slumped on the floor.

“Plagg… what do I do now?”

Plagg looked at his downhearted chosen.

“Take action.”

* * *

Nino paced as he gnawed on his nails. He was near the bakery, but not close enough for anyone to see him from it. He didn’t know what to do. He’d been standing and pacing there for almost two hours and he didn’t have the nerve to walk in. He didn’t know how to approach her, he didn’t know what he was going to say.

‘Hey I’m sorry I’ve been a jerk for the past few weeks and believed someone who I have known for a few weeks when I knew you for basically my whole life. No hard feelings though.”?

He scoffed at himself. He couldn’t even face her parents. God her parents. He saw Marinette as a sister, making Tom and Sabine his second family. They probably hated him after what he did to their daughter. He couldn’t blame them. He hated himself. He continued to pace , so deep in thought that he didn’t notice the group of laughing teenagers walking towards to bakery.

“Nino?” A quiet whisper broke him out of his thoughts. It was Marinette. He froze.

Marinette was in the middle of the group of friends. A tall, scary blonde had his arm around her shoulders, a dark haired boy was getting a piggyback ride from a girl with brightly colored hair and half mohawk, while the boy with similar headphones as him, a blonde, tanned girl, and a tattooed boy stood close by holding half eaten crêpes.

“Hi Marinette,” he finally choked out.

“Wait isn’t he one of your old classmates that bullied you?” The dark haired boy asked as he hopped off the bright haired girl. 

He was answered with silence, answering the question they all had.

“Alan hold my hoops, I’m going to teach this boy a lesson!” The blonde and tanned girl said, angry as she started taking off her earrings and handed them and her crêpe to the headphone kids.

“Not before I get a few hits,” the bright haired girl snarled as she cracked her knuckles.

He tensed himself as he waited for the girls to tear him to shreds, only for those very girls to be stopped. The tattooed boy quickly handed his crêpe to the dark haired boy and picked up the tanned girl with one arm, and grabbed the hood of the bright haired girl with the other. 

“Hey, let’s try and not kill anyone tonight,” the tattooed boy said as he held the two stuggling girls in his arms. “At least not in public.”

Nino paled before letting out a dry chuckle. 

“Just let them kill me, I probably deserve it.”

“Nino what are you doing here?” Marinette asked, so quiet he barely caught it.

He looked at her, her stance guarded while the scary blonde pulled her closer. He didn’t know what to say. Why did he come here? Was he going to apologize? That’ll mean practically nothing to her, especially after everything he had done. But he wanted to apologize, he still wanted to let her know he felt sorry. 

“I… I came here to apologize.”

The bright haired girl scoffed.

“Did you come here to beg for her forgiveness? Her friendship? Newsflash kid, that ship sailed!” She yelled as she struggled to get out of the tattooed boy’s grip. 

“God no. I don’t deserve her forgiveness, let alone her friendship. I just want her to know.. That I’m sorry. For everything,” he looked at her with sad eyes. Her face unreadable. “I’m sorry for listening to Lila. I’m sorry I believed everything that harpy said. I’m sorry I said all of those hurtful words when they weren’t true. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you when you told us she was lying… I’m… I’m sorry I was an awful friend… Marinette… I’m…,” he choked. “I am so sorry Marinette.” Nino was now sobbing, he tried to keep the tears at bay, after all, it was her who should be crying, it was her who was hurting not him. But his emotions flooded and everything fell apart. He fell apart. 

Marinette slowly walked over to him, she stood in front of him. He ready for her to yell at him, hell, even hit him, but she hugged him. She had hugged him. He stood their, confused at first, but quickly hugged her back as he sobbed. She slowly pulled away at look at him.

“Nino… I don’t know if I can forgive you… at least not yet… You were my closest friend and you abandoned me, and it hurt. I’m glad you realized your mistakes… but it doesn’t change what you did. I need time Nino, I need time to think…’

Nino nodded.

“Of course, take all the time you need,” Nino said quietly as he wiped the stray tears off his face. He looked at her friends. “I’m glad you found better friends. They seem really cool.”

She smiled at them.

“Yeah… they really are.”

“Well, I better go… Good night Marinette. It was good to see you.”

“You too Nino.”

He waved her goodbye and walked away. He felt a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Even if Marinette never forgave him, it would be ok. He’s just happy that she's in a good place. He’s happy that she’s happy.

Marinette watched as Nino left then turned to her friends. None of them had anticipated for that to happen. One moment they were happily laughing and joking after getting crêpes to cheer up Marinette, the next Marinette was hugging a crying ex-friend. Well, maybe ex-friend, none of them knew if Marinette wanted to be friends with him again, not even Marinette. 

“Marinette? Are you ok?” Félix asked, voice filled with concern. He walked up to her to give her a hug.

“No… Yes? I mean… I’m ok I just,” she sighed. “I don’t know what to do.”

The group of friends looked at one another.

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Allegra asked as Alec finally let her go, retrieving her earrings and crêpe.

She thought about it. She wanted to be with them. Even if it was a little longer.

“I know it’s a school night, and you guys probably should be going home now… but is it ok if you guys stay? Even if it’s just half-an-hour.” 

They looked at each other again.

“Marinette, I can say this on the behalf of everyone else, we’ll stay as long as you need.” Alan said as he walked over to hug her along with Félix. 

“Yeah Mari! We gotcha back!” Anais exclaimed, jumping in to also hug her.

“Group hug!” Claude exclaimed as he ran to join them.

Allegra and Alec walked over to join the tangled limbs.

As they hugged each other, Marinette felt warmth blossoming from her chest. She felt loved.

“Claude did you finish my crêpe?”

“..... No.”

“Goddamnit Claude! I wanted to eat Alec’s crêpe!”

* * *

“So… do you think I should forgive Nino?”

They were all lying or sitting around Marinette’s room.

“Do I think you should forgive your old friend? Honestly I don’t know, you forgave that Chloé chick, and she bullied you for years,” Claude said, laying on her couch, head upside down.

“True, but that’s different. Chloé is building a trust she never had, while Nino has to rebuild that trust, and in my opinion that’s harder.” Allegra stated as she layed like a starfish on the floor.

“How so?” Alan asked as he span around in Marinette’s swivel chair.

“Well with Chloé’s situation, Marinette already knew what Chloé was like, she knew she was a jerk and that she shouldn’t expect anything from her, while with Nino, she had given him her trust, she had a set expectation, but then he broke that trust, he lowered her expectations. While Chloé had started from zero, she never left that area, she stayed a zero, but with Nino he went from, let’s say a hundred, down to a zero. In my opinion it’s easier to work with a blank canvas then continue with a messed up painting.”

Marinette groaned from her spot on the floor. They both had a point. She did, allegedly, forgave Chloé, and offered her friendship. She didn’t know what to do with her situation with Nino. A part of her wanted to just forgive Nino and just be friends with him again, but another part of her wanted to stay mad and just cut any loose ends from her time in Françoise Dupont.

“Félix, if you were in my situation, what would you do?” She looked up at the blonde who was sitting on the steps that lead to her bed.

“What would I do?” Félix thought for a moment. “ I would cut him off. I’d salt and burn any roads that connected me to him. I’d never forgive, and I’d never forget.”

“Yeah, but that’s you… not Marinette,” Anais whispered from where she sat, leaning on the couch. Everyone looked at her with confusion. “It doesn’t matter what you would do, or what I would do, or what anyone else would do, the only thing that matters is what Marinette feels like she would, or should do. We can give her all the input we want, tell her how we feel or what we would do, or try to push her in what we feel is the right direction… But it’s up to Marinette to decide what she thinks is the right direction. It’s up to her to figure out how she feels. Depending on what Nino did, and how harsh he was, that’s up to Marinette. She was the one who experienced it, she was the one who felt that pain. No one knows her feelings better than herself, even if it’s hard to realize or accept at first, deep down she knows. She knows, in her heart, what she should do.”

Marinette looked at Anais, shocked. The usually bubbly girl had quickly turned sullen. She knew what she said was right. She knew everything Anais was true. It was up to her, not anyone else, to figure out what she should do.

“I… I want to be friends with Nino again… and I want to forgive him… but I don’t think I can forgive him just yet.”

Anais nodded. 

“Trust takes time. Fixing things takes time and effort, and you deserve all the time you need till you know when you can trust him. Now it’s up to him if he’s going to put in that effort.”

Marinette smiled at Anais.

“Thank you… I need to hear that.”

“Dang ‘Nais when did you get deep?” Claude exclaimed.

“Shut up Claude,” she said as she playfully shoved him.

“I swear you and Alec give the best talks.” Alan stated.

“Speaking of Alec where is he?”

Marinette looked around the room, she just noticed he wasn’t there.

“I have no idea, I swear he was here a second ago.” Claude said as he scratched his head.

“Do you think he’s still in the bakery?” Allegra chimned in.

“Maybe.”

“He’s probably in the bathroom. Anyways Marinette, don’t think I noticed that necklace under your collar, did Oscar the Grouch give it to you? I bet he did!” Anais jumped excitedly.

Marinette giggled, as she tried to calm Anais down. She still wondered where Alec was. Where could he be?

* * *

If Nino thought about the ways he would die, this wasn’t one of them. He was sitting at a café not far from Marinette’s bakery, with her intimidating, tattooed friend as he sipped on his espresso.

“So…”

“Alec.”

“Alec… is there a reason I’m with you or are you just trying secretly poison me?”

Alec laughed.

“Of course I’m not going to poison you,” Nino slightly relaxed. “There are too many witnesses and I would be the first suspect. No, if I wanted to kill you, I would make it look like an accident.” Nino tensed up again.

“But I didn’t call you to tell you whether I would kill you or not. I’m here to recruit you.”

“Recruit me?” Nino asked confused.

“Yes recruit you. I need someone on the inside. Someone who knows Lila and her stupid sheeps. It’ll make it easier to expose that wolf.”

Nino flinched when he compared his classmates and girlfriend to stupid sheeps, granted they might deserve it.

“Ok… and you trust me enough to do this?” Nino asked warily.

Alec raised an eyebrow.

“Should I have reason not to trust you?”

Nino rubbed the back of his neck.

“Well I hurt one of your friends and I betrayed that friend’s trust.”

“Yes, you did hurt Marinette, and as upsetting as that is to me, you did not do anything to betray  **my ** trust yet. From what I can tell, you feel sincere remorse for your actions-”

“Of course I do!”

Alec gave him a look. Nino quickly shut his mouth.

“Does that mean you regained Marinette’s trust? Her friendship? That’s up to her. But you opened up a door for my mine. My trust, and my friendship. Can you keep that friendship and trust? Only time can tell. So, are you in?” 

Nino thought for a moment. He could allegedly be hurting the classmates he viewed as a friends, he could hurt his girlfriend. But they all hurt Marinette, and they felt no remorse, and they needed to pay. Especially Lila.

“What do you need me to do?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Revenge is coming baby! In request of draph91 I started off the chapter with "gee... ya think" and Adrien finally realizing that he's an idiot. Will he do something? Who knows? I know 'cause I'm writing this! And looks like Nino is apart of the Assassinate Lila Squad! I have no idea who came up with that name but I keep seeing it in my comments so it might be incorporated into the story! 
> 
> Also, I'm thinking about writing story on Bridgette before her suicide and what caused it. If I get more than twenty people wanting it, I'll write it. 
> 
> Also please leave any criticism or if you have any requests on how you want the story to go in the comments! I like some of the ideas you guys give me and try to incorporate them into the story. Also on a totally, unrelated note... If the fox and turtle miraculous went to any of the squad members, who would they go to and why?


	11. Hey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey to any readers who have already read this chapter, I made an edit during the limo scene because part of what Adrien said has some contradictions to something he said earlier. I didn't realize the mistake until now when I reread the chapter (because I was too lazy to check for spelling errors before I posted), and the mistake was made due to a change in how I wanted the chapter to go. I'm sorry, and I'll try to make sure no mistakes are like this one are in future chapters.

Previously:

_ Nino thought for a moment. He could allegedly be hurting the classmates he viewed as a friends, he could hurt his girlfriend. But they all hurt Marinette, and they felt no remorse, and they needed to pay. Especially Lila. _

_ “What do you need me to do?” _

* * *

_ “Take action.” _

It was Friday and Adrien STILL didn’t know what Plagg ment. Whenever he asked the kwami, he’d just shake his head and sighed.. The kwami refused to talk to him no matter the circumstance, he wouldn’t even complain for camembert! Plagg wasn’t the only one giving him the silent treatment. Ever since Nino found out he knew Lila was lying… or well… since he abandoned Marinette, the dj hadn’t talked to him since. A few of his classmates noticed the distance between the two and tried asking if the friends were they were alright, but both brushed off any of their concerns. What was worse was Nino was acting as if Monday never happened! He was listening and talking to Lila like he didn’t know she was lying! He felt like pulling his hair out the entire week. Part of Nino’s whole argument on Monday was that Adrien just **let** Lila lie, and now he’s doing the same thing! His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the bell. The school day was over. 

“Hey Nino, we’re all going to the mall, do you want to come?” Alya asked.

Nino gave his girlfriend an apologetic look. 

“Sorry Alya, but I already made plans.”

“Really? What plans?”

“Uh, my friend asked me to meet him, said he needed to tell me something.” Nino said with a tight smile.

Alya looked unconvinced at first, it was the fourth time he was blowing them off, but she shrugged it off.

Nino pecked his girlfriend on the cheek and waved everyone goodbye. Adrien had a sinking feeling that Nino was hiding something. So he went to follow him. He rushed off before anyone could ask him if he wanted to go to the mall and started to tail Nino. He walked at a big enough distance that if Nino turned around Adrien would have time to hide, but not close enough for him that would make him suspicious. Plagg gave him a concerning look before shrugging it off and continue to eat his camembert. Nino walked over to a café and sat at a table, he ordered as he waited. Waiting for someone. Adrien hid behind a building as he too waited for this mystery “friend”. After a minute or two a boy curly hair and wearing a school uniform walked to sit with Nino. They started talking but Adrien couldn’t hear. He pondered for a bit on what he should do before he dashed for another building closer to the café, luckily they didn’t notice him. He could finally hear them. 

“-getting harder for me to keep up the act every passing day. All I want to do is yell at them and make them open their eyes! I mean come on! They’re not even that good! I can’t believe I ever fell for her lies!”

“But you did,” the boy said with a smirk.

Nino gave him a face.

“Yes Alec, thank you. You know that’s exactly what, I need a constant reminder of my mistakes. I don’t need you to rub it in! I get it! I was stupid!”

“Was?”

“Shut up! But urgh! I never wanted to slap someone so bad! Well, maybe Adrien, but that’s more of a dissapointment slap then an anger slap!” 

Adrien flinched when he heard Nino wanted to slap him.

“Is there a difference?” The boy, Alec, asked as he raised an eyebrow. “Either way, the receiving end is getting slapped.”

“Not really, but it’ll feel different to me.” Nino said as he slumped in his seat while a waiter brought their drinks. As Alec picked up his coffee Adrien could see part of a tattoo under his rolled up sleeves.

‘Just who is this guy? How does Nino even know him? And why were they talking about Lila?’ Adrien thought. 

“So how’s the plan coming along?”

‘Plan?’ Adrien asked in his head.

“It’s going along fine, we need to work on a few kinks and get as much information from you as we can until it’s fully ready. If we really want to leave an impact on that fibber, we need everything to be perfect.”

“Have you told Marinette about the plan yet?”

Adrien froze when he heard the name. Marinette.

‘Why did they bring Marinette? What does Marinette have to do with this? Was she a part of this “plan” of theirs?’ All of those thoughts flashed through his mind as they continued to speak.

“No. We can’t tell her or the others just yet. We need to have a good foundation before we actually start truly forming a plan, and the others don’t usually do the whole “plan” thing. I’m not sure if you can tell from when you met them, but they’re… well…”

“Impulsive?” 

“I was going to say hot head and don’t think before they do, but yeah, impulsive could work.” 

Adrien didn’t know how to feel about the situation in front of him. Nino was planning something with this guy and it involved Marinette, apparently Lila, and there were more people? Adrien tried to piece things together when something they said caught his attention.

“So what’s Félix going to do to Adrien?” Nino asked as he drank his soda.

“I honestly have no idea. Knowing him, he wouldn’t hold back on the punishment, even if he is his cousin.”

‘Wait Félix? As in his brooding cousin Félix? How was Félix now apart of this? And why was he, of all people, going to punish him??’

“Yeah,” Nino said with a dry laugh. “Didn’t have to talk to him long to know he’ll slaughter anyone who hurts his loved ones, especially Marinette.”

“Yep, they haven’t even been dating long and they’re already acting like a married couple in their honeymoon phase. Honestly it’s so sweet it’s almost sickening.”

Nino laughed as Adrien went cold.

‘Marinette’s dating Félix-?!’

“Adrien what are you doing here?” a voice called as they hugged him. It was Lila. Behind her was the rest of the class, excluding Chloé. 

“Uh…,” he turned to see Nino and Alec stare at him. His cover was blown.

‘Shit’

* * *

It had been only a few days since he apologized to Marinette. It had also been only a few days since Alec had recruited him in the “Assassinate Lila Squad”.

_ “Wait, we’re not going to actually kill Lila right?” _

_ “Of course not. We’re killing her credibility and kingdom she built up. _ ** _We_ ** _ won’t touch a hair on her head.” _

_ “Oh… ok… Wait what do you mean by “we”? What are you implying? Are you going to have someone else kill her? Hire assassins or something? Alec? Why are you cackling? Alec? Alec??” _

Nino shivered at the memory. He was so glad he was on his side. No one else was a part of the plan yet except for the scary blonde, Félix, who he found out was Marinette’s boyfriend. Nino’s job was supposedly easy. Pretend to still be ignorant and believe what Lila said, continue to be friends with his classmates, overall, pretend like Monday never happened.

‘Easier said than done,’ Nino scoffed in his head.

Today was especially hard for him to keep a straight face. It took them two weeks. Two whole weeks for them to start worrying about the whereabouts of Marinette. He had to bite his tongue as they talked about their “friend” and how they were “so worried” about her during the start of the day and lunch. He wanted to yell at them. He wanted to scream at their faces, engrave their minds that they hurt her. That they all hurt her. But he couldn’t. He had to keep up the act if he wanted Alec’s and Félix’s plan to work. As long as there was a lesson he could keep his cool, but for some reason, he couldn’t even take a break! His nails started to dig into his palm when Alya started to complain about Marinette. And she complained the whole goddamn lesson.

“I mean, the nerve of that girl! She skips school for two weeks and refuses to pick up our calls!” Alya exclaimed in a hushed whisper so Mne. Bustier didn’t hear her.

‘That’s because she blocked all of your phone numbers.’ He thought. She had only recently unblocked his and was texting him. Their relationship was still rocky, but he was just happy she was talking to him

“She needs to own up to what she did and apologize to Lila,” Alya finished with a humph. 

He loves his girlfriend, he really does, but she was so goddamn stubborn. In some ways, it’s good and that’s one of the reasons he fell in love with her, but she can be so goddamn stubborn she stands her ground no matter what, even if she is wrong.

“It’s alright Alya,” Lila said, a sad smile as she turned to face Alya. “It didn’t hurt that much when she tripped me all those times… it did hurt when she said all those hurtful words though.” She started to shed a few crocodile tears.

Nino was about to snap when he heard the bell ringing. The term “Saved by the bell” had never rung so true. He quickly packed his stuff and gave his girlfriend a quick excuse to why he couldn’t come with the class to the mall. He wasn’t technically lying. He was meeting up with Alec, but he wasn’t sure if they could be considered “friends” yet. Everyday since Monday, Nino and Alec met at the café from before and Nino would tell him updates on everyone in his class. 

_ “Doesn’t your coll _ é _ g _ e _ let out like an hour later the mine? You do know we can just text right? Or at least meet at a different time.” _

_ “Yes my coll _ é _ ge lets out an hour later, but if I go another time the others, especially my sister, would get suspicious about my whereabouts. My last period of the day is my arts period, so as long as I pass evaluation each month, no one really cares what I do during that period. As for the texting thing. I prefer speaking face-to-face when important business is at hand. And this plan, is very important,” he said with a devilish smirk that sent shivers down Nino’s back. _

When Nino reached the café Alec wasn’t there yet. He decided to order Alec’s usual espresso and a soda for him. He didn’t have to wait long, as he saw Alec wave at him and sit in the chair in front of him.

“Hey Alec.”

“Hi Nino, sorry I’m late, there was an accident on my way here which caused some traffic.”

“It’s fine, also I already ordered your drink.”

“Thanks. So what’s new on “Lila’s List of Lies.”

Nino groaned into his hands.

“Luckily she only had one lie she told today and that was her trip to Japan during the weekend, but the only reason why she didn’t have any other lies is because everyone was talking shit about Marinette,” Nino said with a growl.

“Oh really?” Alec asked with an eerily calm face.

“Yeah! God they are so awful! I don’t know if I can keep up the act for another three weeks, it’s getting harder for me to keep up the act every passing day. All I want to do is yell at them and make them open up their eyes! I mean come on! They’re not even that good! I can’t believe I ever fell for her lies!”

“But you did,” Alec said with a smirk.

Nino rolled his eyes. They continued to talk for a bit before Alec had to leave when he heard a very familiar. 

“Adrien what are you doing here?” 

He and Alec looked at the source of the voice. It was Lila. She was hanging off Adrien and had the rest of the class behind her. Adrien looked panicked as he looked at her then to where he and Alec were sitting. He put two and two together and figured out Adrien was spying on him. He tried to slip away before his classmates noticed him, that’s when his girlfriend made eye contact with him.

“Nino? What are you doing here?”

“Is that the friend Alya said you were with?” Rosé asked curiously.

All eyes went on Alec. 

“Errr Yeah. Um, uh guys this is Alec.”

He gave a sheepish wave and small smile.

“Hi.”

They all started to crowd Alec and Nino’s table and started to bombard him with greetings and questions.

“Hello!”

“Hi, it’s nice to meet you!”

“How do you know Nino?”

“What school do you go to?”

“What do you do for fun?”

“Is that a tattoo? That’s so cool!”

Alec looked very uncomfortable with the whole interaction. Marinette briefly mentioned Alec’s anxiety in a passing text conversation, so Nino quickly figured out he might also have social anxiety

“Guys guys stop crowding him. He has social anxiety and all of these new faces might be overwhelming to him.”

They all took a step back before murmuring apologizes. Alec shot him a quick thankful look before speaking to his classmates.

“Thank you. I’m sorry if I might come off shy, I’m just not good around so many new people. As for your questions; I meet Nino through a mutual friend. I go to Arté Du Louvre. I either dance or hang out with my friends during my free time. And yes I have a tattoo, I actually have a few.” 

Alec’s polite and timid demeanor surprised Nino. It was the opposite from the confident, snarky boy he got to know during the week, especially to the people he quote on quote “will completely crush them if he ever saw them”. Granted, if he blew up, their plan would go down the drain. Everyone looked at him in awe except for Alya, for some reason, she had a quizzically. 

“So you said something about him telling you something Nino? What was so important that you couldn’t hang out today?” Alya asked in an almost accusing tone.

“Uh… I don’t think that’s any of your business babe.” Nino said as nicely as he could, hoping he wouldn’t set off his girlfriend. 

Alya was taken aback.

“What do you mean it’s none of my business?”

“I mean he told me something that I can’t tell you,” he tried.

“Why are you being so secretive? What are you hiding?”

“I’m not hiding anything! You’re just meddling in someone else’s business!”

“Meddling?!”

“Hey did you say you’re a student at Arté Du Louvre? We’re going there in a few weeks!” Rosé said in a chipper voice, hoping to change the subject.

“Did you know I was supposed to go there for music? I couldn’t after I got tinnitus I couldn’t go, plus my arthritis flared up every time I tried playing the guitar,” Lila said as she continued to hang off an uncomfortable Adrien.

‘That’s going the list.’ Nino thought.

Alya, however, ignored both of them.

“What did he tell you.”

“Alya what part of “it’s none of your business” don’t you understand?? You just literally met Alec! It’s his business, for all you know his dog could’ve died! Or maybe something happened to his family! Either way it’s none of your business!” 

“From what I could tell, he didn’t tell you sad news or else he would be crying! So what? What is it that he had to tell you that was so important?! Or did you lie so you could ditch us?!”

“Dear lord! Alya-!”

“Oh my god, I’m gay!” Alec yelled.

Everyone looked at him, shocked, including Nino.

“What?” Alya choked out.

“As in I like men! I’m atracted to the same-sex! I wanted to come out to him, that what was so important! Jesus if I had known some psycho would force me out of the closet to a bunch of strangers just because she has trust issues with her boyfriend, I would’ve told him another day!”

Everyone was frozen, especially Alya.

“I-I didn’t know that’s what-”

“You’re right! You didn’t know! And you weren’t supposed to know! I shouldn’t have to come out just so you’d get off your boyfriend’s back!” 

Alya continued to gape at him.

“What? Don’t tell me you’re homophobic.”

“W-What no-!”

“Yeah, I don’t have time for this. I’m already running late, did not think me saying “I like dick” would take this long. Nino I’ll drive you home, you too Adrien.”

Everyone, still shocked by the abrupt coming out, didn’t question why Alec wanted Adrien to come with him. Adrien looked confused at first, but then Alec gave him a look that didn’t allow any further argument. Adrien quickly unlatched Lila from him and ran to the limo Alec and Nino were getting in. As soon as he closed the door, the limo started to move.

Alec scowled while Nino looked exhausted, Adrien felt weird being in a car with a stranger and someone who wanted to physically hurt him.

“Um… is there a reason why wanted me here?”

Both looked at him with glares.

“Maybe he’s as dumb as Félix said he is,” Alec mumbled.

“I don’t know Adrien, why do you think you’re here? Maybe because you followed me? Maybe because you were spying on our conversation? Or maybe because you brought along our classmates, not only possibly ruining our plan- I know you heard us don’t even try to deny it!- and making Alec fake a coming out so Alya would get off my back!” 

“Oh, no, I didn’t lie, I’m actually gay. I said it ‘cause it would explain why the news was both important and why neither you or I wanted to tell her. Also I hate your girlfriend now.”

Nino looked at Alec for a moment before throwing his hands in the air.

“Good for you bro, I’m sorry you had to come out to me like that! Also you already hated my girlfriend before, but we’re getting off topic! Adrien! You heard something you weren’t supposed to and now we have to deal with it!”

Adrien looked afraid at first before looking stern.

“You shouldn’t expose her.”

The shocked both Alec and Nino.

“What?” Nino growled

“You’re planning on exposing Lila right? I have a feeling you’re going to humiliate her while doing it, and I can’t let that happen. That’s not going to help Marinette’s situation, it’ll just make Lila mad and possibly akumatized. We just need to talk to her and she'll stop and see the error of her ways.”

Nino and Alec stared at Adrien, disbelief in their eyes. It was silent for a moment, then Nino started screaming in frustration as he started punching and gripping at the air as if it was Adrien, while Alec, had the opposite reaction: He was laughing. Laughing so hard he was clutching his stomach. 

“Oh my god he’s so stupid!” Alec howled.

“Hey-!”

“How can you still-?! How are you-?! Augh! After everything! Everything you still believe in that stupid belief!? Believe she can get better?!” Nino looked like he was about to foam from the mouth.

“She could become a better person over time!”

“What kind of Disney Channel shit are you spewing on about?! No! It’s even worse! Because at least the bully in the show realized what they were doing was wrong or got some sort of discipline for their actions! You’re just expecting Lila to become a better person at the flip of a switch! Like she’ll just suddenly- poof! Become a good person without any personal growth or consequences of her actions! You just-! Augh!!!” Nino fell back in his seat in defeat. 

Alec was still laughing when they finally reached Nino’s destination.

“Ugh, Alec… Please, please, please, please, **pleeease**! Knock some sense in him,” Nino said, rubbing his eyes as he exited to vehicle.

Alec only gave him a thumbs up as he continued to shake with laughter. 

Nino didn’t know what to do anymore. He feels that every passing day that boy gets more and more hopeless. 

* * *

As soon as Nino closed the door Alec’s whole demeanor changed in a second. One moment he was shaking with laughter, the next his face stoic, his gaze hard, and his posture rigid. He reminded Adrien of his father.

Adrien shivered.

“You know, if I didn’t promise Félix that he could confront you, I would be ripping you to shreds by now.” He said with a tight smile. “I want to, but I won’t, because I actually keep my promises. Unlike you.”

Adrien flinched. He did break his promise to Marinette.

‘I-”

“No. Nu-uh. Hush, I’m talking,” Alec said in a stern tone. “Also we’re not going to humiliate her. We’re going to slaughter her. She is going to get what she deserves.”

“You’ll be just as bad as her!” Adrien exclaimed. “This isn’t the route you guys should go, we need to just talk to her and-”

“Did talking work?”

Adrien halted.

“What?”

“Did talking work? I mean, you must’ve tried to talk to her before, and did it work? Did talking make her better.”

“W-Well… no. But she just needs to be pushed in the right direction! And this whole, plan, you guys were talking about and leaving an “impact” on Lila, will do nothing but hurt her.”

Alec looked at Adrien with cold eyes.

“Adrien, what did Lila do wrong?”

“I’m sorry what?”

“What. Did. Lila. Do. Wrong. Why do you think we’re doing this? Why am I and Nino are so set on exposing her, and as you said, hurt her.”

Adrien looked at him, thinking it might be a trick question. 

“Because she’s leading on my classmates through her lies? Because making empty promises she can’t keep. Because… Because she hurt Marinette.”

Alec gave an unimpressed look and nod.

“Good. Now what do you think is that **you** did wrong?”

Adrien thought for a moment.

“Because I did nothing to stop her. I just let Lila continue to lie to my friends. I broke my promise with Marinette. I didn’t stand by Marinette. I let Marinette down. I hurt her.”

“And what are you doing to wrong your right? What are you doing to make it up to Marinette?”

Adrien opened his mouth, but no answer. He wasn’t doing anything because he didn’t know what to do.

“Exactly, you’re doing nothing.” Alec growled as he leaned into Adrien. “Félix is setting up the plan, Nino’s gathering intel, I’m doing research. We’re doing something, we’re doing something for Marinette, Nino’s trying to make things better with Marinette, while you’re just sitting idly on the sidelines like before. You’re doing nothing to break your friend from the witch’s curse. You’re not trying to rebuild your relationship with Marinette. I’m pretty sure you didn’t even apologize to her! Tell me Adrien, why do you think we should do it your way? Tell me where that left you? That left Marinette? She was forced out of school by the people she trusted the most and you lost two wonderful people in your life and now you’re stuck with a wolf and her sheep. Tell me Adrien, why shouldn’t we just go along with our own plan? And don’t say because it’s revenge, it’s more than just revenge. Lila needs to be stopped. Who says she’s not going to do the same thing she did to Marinette to some poor girl or boy? Who says Marinette was her first victim? Who says she hadn’t already done this before?” Adrien was now squished between the car door and Alec. With every point Alec made, he jabbed at Adrien’s chest. 

“She needs to be stopped. She needs to stop hurting people, and that won’t happen unless we do something, unless we take action.”

_ “Take action.” _

“We are going to do something about her, and you’re not going to stop us.”

One minute Adrien was trapped in the limo, the next he was flat on the pavement. Alec had opened the door when he wasn’t looking.

“Stay out of this Adrien if you know what’s good for you, and utter a word about this and you’ll regret it. Don’t forget, I’m the one doing the research. I’m the one who did background check on not only Lila, but the rest of the class, that includes you. I did some digging on certain people, I learned secrets that some people wouldn’t want exposed. Don’t get on my bad side kitty.”

With that Alec shut the door and the limo drove away. Adrien got up from where he fell and looked around. He was home. 

_ “She needs to stop hurting people, and that won’t happen unless we do something, unless we take action.” _

Take action. That what was Plagg was talking about, he needs to take action. Alec was right. Lila must be stopped.

Adrien started to walk through the front gate when he froze.

_ Kitty _

Alec had called him kitty. There’s no way. There’s no way he could’ve found about his secret identity. Even if he did extensive research on him, there’s nothing that says Adrien was Chat Noir. But why else would he call Adrien kitty? He said he did some digging on certain people. He learned secrets that some people wouldn’t want exposed. He knows. He knows his secret.

* * *

Alec sat in silence as he was driven to Marinette’s bakery. He was late. Alec ran his hand through his hair. He didn’t expect it would take that long. He didn’t expect to meet Nino’s classmates. His phone had blown up with texts and phone calls from his friends and sister. He didn't know if he could come up with an excuse for why he wasn’t there at school. He exited the limo and thanked the driver. He saw another limo waiting nearby but ignored it. He walked in the bakery, a smile bloomed on his face when he was greeted by Tom and Sabine.

“Hi sweetie how are you?” Sabine asked sweetly. 

“I’m good Sabine, and you?”

“I’m well, thank you!”

“The kids are up in Marinette’s room, here take these,” Tom said as he handed Alec a plate of pastries.

“Thank you,” Alec said with a smile.

He walked up stairs, plate a pastries in hand. He heard yelling and loud thumps. 

‘Must be another debate’ Alec thought.

When he went to Marinette’s room he noticed the room was split in two, with Félix, Allegra and Anais on one side, and Claude, Marinette and Alan on the other. This time it wasn’t just Anais and Claude arguing, but everyone, and whatever it was, it was a heated debate.

“Marinette, I absolutely love you, but how can you say Hercules is stronger than Elsa?!” Félix yelled.

“Hercules is a literal god! How can he not?!” Marinette yelled back.

“Elsa doesn’t stand a chance!” Allan hollard. 

“His powers are only useful in close combat scenarios Elsa could just attack him from afar.” Allegra pointed out.

“He defeated titans before, I’m pretty sure a girl shooting snowballs at him is nothing.” Claude stated.

“You did not just refer the queen of ice as “a girl shooting snowballs!” Anais exclaimed trying to claw Claude’s eyes out.

Alec cleared his throat, they all quieted and looked in his direction.

“Alec where have you been?!” Anais yelled. “We couldn’t find you anywhere in the school and you didn’t answer your phone!”

“Yeah man, you could’ve at least told us your whereabouts, we thought you were kidnapped,” Alan said.

Alec raised an eyebrow as he put the plate of pastries on Marinette’s desk.

“And your solution to save me from my kidnappers is debate on who would win in a fight Elsa or Hercules?”

Everyone besides Félix gave him a sheepish look.

“In our defense, we only **thought **you were kidnapped, as in past tense. Félix explained that you probably had a good reason why you weren’t responding.”

Félix and Alec gave each other a look, a silent exchange between the two before Alec sighed.

“I did have a good reason, and if it’s alright with you guys, I’d rather not talk about it.”

The friends gave each other looks before nodding. If Alec didn’t want to talk about something, he wouldn’t no matter what.

“So how do you even start this in the first place?” Alec asked, gesturing to the debate.

“Claude started talking about how Maleficent is his favorite Disney villain and that she’s the strongest Disney character,” Allegra started to explain.

“And then I pointed out that she was defeated by a toothpick,” Anais stated.

“It was an enchanted sword!” Claude exclaimed.

Anais waved his explanation off.

“So then Marinette said the Hercules was actually the most powerful Disney character, but Félix disagreed saying it was Elsa. One thing lead to another, we chose sides and now we need a tie breaker, you.”

Alec pondered for a moment as his friends waited in anticipation.

“So, wait are we talking about all Disney characters? Any character that was made under the Disney name?

“Uh, yeah, why?” Allegra asked skeptically.

“Then the most powerful is probably then Bill Cipher. Bill has infinite power across multiple dimensions. His powers defies all logic and reasoning, and if all the characters are fighting at their prime without any sort of restriction, he’d probably destroy everyone in a snap, well, not before having a little fun by torturing them.”

They all looked at Alec.

“Ok, Alec no longer has a say in this debate, agreed?”

“Agreed,” they chimned in as Alec rolled his eyes.

“Ok so how are we going to break the tie then?” Asked Alan. 

“Oh my god I almost forgot!” Marinette exclaimed.

“What?” Félix asked.

“You guys were supposed to meet Chloé today!” She said as she checked her phone. “Oh my god she’s been waiting outside for almost twenty minutes! I’ll be right back!”

Marinette ran down to the bakery as the others continued to debate. Alec went to stand by Félix. 

“So what took so long?” Félix asked in a hushed voice. 

“I ran into Nino’s class, or, well Nino’s class ran into us after they spotted your cousin spying on us.”

Félix scowled at the thought of his cousin.

“Did Adrien hear anything?”

“Basically everything and told us we shouldn’t try to expose her that might hurt her feelings. Said she’ll change if we try to talk to her, and from his standpoint, again,” Alec said in a bitter tone.

Félix scoffed. 

“Of course he would. He always wanted his cake and eat it too. He wants her to change without her facing her consequences,” Félix growled. “I think I’m going to have to talk to him sooner than we intended.”

Alec gave him an understanding nod as Marinette brought another blonde into her room. 

“Hey guys, this is Chloé! Chloé this is, Félix, Alan, Allegra, Claude, Alec and Anais!” She said as she gestured to a person to their corresponding names.

“Um hi,” she said, clearly uncomfortable. 

Claude walked up to her and held out his hand.

“Hi it’s nice to-” Claude was interrupted when Anais pushed him aside.

She stood in front of Chloé, looked her in the eyes, then put her hand on her shoulder.

“Hey,” she said with a sly smile.

The room went silent.

‘Did she seriously take flirting advice from a cartoon character?!’ Alec thought.

Somehow, to Alec’s surprise, it worked, as Chloé turned into a bright crimson.

“H-Hey,” Chloé said in a quiet voice. 

Anais must have not have a step two because she just stood there awkwardly with her hand on Chloé’s shoulder.

“Oh my god you gay disaster, you call that flirting?!” Alec yelled.

“Shut up! That’s all I got! I didn’t think she would actually respond positively!” Anais yelled back.

“Then figure something out, your awkwardness is spreading!”

Anais realized she still had her hand on Chloé’s shoulder and snatched her hand back as if Chloé was fire.

“Sorry… I just think you’re really pretty,” Anais whispered

Chloé turned a brighter shade a red before flipping her hair.

“O-Of course I’m pretty, I’m Chloé Bourgeois!” She said proudly. “But… um, I-I thinkyou’reprettytoo.”

Anais was now also blushing. 

“So now we got the gay out of the way, Chloé! Before we let you into the group answer this question! Who would win in a fight, Elsa or Hercules?” Claude exclaimed.

Chloé looked at Claude still affected by Anais’ flirting, but quickly composed herself.

“Obviously Elsa, she's a total queen. That girl froze over her entire kingdom by just walking, she can make literal ice minions, plus she could just freeze Hercules to the core like she accidentally did with Ana.”

Marinette, Allegra, and Claude groaned while Alan cheered and Félix smirked at the losing team. 

“I think I’m in love,” Anais stated, clamping her hand over her mouth as soon as she realized what she said.

Chloé looked at Anais and giggled.

‘Oh boy, this is going to be annoying,’ Alec thought bitterly.

* * *

Marinette waved her friends good-bye as they went into their respective limos. Marinette walked back into her room and plopped onto her bed. 

“Well that was interesting,” Tiki giggled as she nibbled on a macaroon.

“I’ll say, I didn’t know Chloé was into girls.”

After Pixar timeline debate, they had a brief conversation about sexuality. Apparently Félix and Marinette were the only straight ones in the group, although according the Alec Félix went through a bicurious phase.

_ “We don’t talk about that Alec.” _

_ “Why? Because it was also during your emo phase-?” _

_ Félix threw one of Marinette’s throw pillows at Alec’s face. _

She started to get ready for bed. She quickly got Tiki another macaroon before changing into her pajamas. She quickly brushed her teeth and went to bed. She laid there and thought about how her life changed for the better. Granted Lila was still lying to her old classmates, but she didn’t care anymore. They didn’t want her help so there was no point in trying anymore. She was happy, she has wonderful parents, great friends, goes to an amazing art school that helped her improve her needle work and fashion design greatly, and a loving boyfriend. She smiled as sleep was about to take her, then she heard tapping. She sat up and looked around. She heard the tapping again. Marinette got out of bed and walked towards the tapping. She realized it was from her balcony. She slowly walked to her balcony and open her hatch.

“Chat?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh I'm sorry it took so long to update! I restarted the chapter like twice. So looks like Adrien knows about the three's plan! And looks like he's visiting Marinette as Chat! What will he do? What will he say? Will he expose Félix, Nino, and Alec? Find out in the next chapter! Also is new love blooming? Chloé and Anais? Maybe!
> 
> Also tell me in the comments who you'd think would win in a fight: Elsa or Hercules!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter and leave any criticism in the comments! Thanks!
> 
> PS here are the sexualities the group identifies, including Nino and Chloé:  
Marinette: Straight  
Anais: Queer  
Alec: Gay  
Claude: Bi  
Allegra: Pan  
Félix: Straight  
Alan: Pan  
Nino: Straight  
Chloe: Bi (For now, but she'll figure out she's a lesbian in later chapters)


	12. Broken Skin

Previously:

_ She sat up and looked around. She heard the tapping again. Marinette got out of bed and walked towards the tapping. She realized it was from her balcony. She slowly walked to her balcony and open her hatch. _

_ “Chat?” _

* * *

Adrien felt cold when everything finally set in. Alec knew his identity. He knew he was Chat Noir and he was definitely not on his good side. Adrien finally remembered where he had seen Alec from, he was one of Marinette’s new friends from the akuma attack at the restaurant. He was the one who hit the akuma and gave them an opportunity to de-evilize the akuma. He was the one who silenced everyone in his group with a glare. That same glare that sent a shiver down his spine. And apparently his cousin Félix was also a part of this weird plan. He Félix were never close, but Félix never expressed any dislike to Adrien. Now, Félix is dating Marinette, and Félix would KILL for the people he loved. The thought of Félix loving Marinette and Marinette loving Félix back left a bitter taste in his mouth. He was confused since he only loved Ladybug, but he pushed those thoughts for another time. He had more worrying matters at hand. Two very scary people are mad at him, one knew his secret identity, while the other has access to his home and could possibly kill him in his sleep. He was so screwed. He shook his head. He couldn’t think about that now. He needs to warn Marinette about her new so called friends. People like that shouldn’t be around his sweet princess. Despite Plagg’s protest he went out to her balcony and knocked. It took a few moments and he was about to leave when he heard a click and the balcony entrance opened. 

“Chat?” Asked a confused Marinette.

He smiled

“Hello purr-incess,” he purred.

She giggled.

“What are you doing here? It’s pretty late and there’s school tomorrow.”

“I just wanted to stop by my favorite civilian.”

She looked at him with a worried look.

“Chat, what’s wrong? I can tell that’s not the only reason you’re here.”

He paused before letting out a dry chuckle. Of course Marinette could see through him.

“I came to warn you.”

“Warn me?” She asked confused. 

“Yes warn you. Your new friends, Alec and Félix, they’re not good people. They’re planning to expose Lila and humiliate her.”

Marinette looked at him, mouth agape and conflicted.

“I-I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

Chat looked taken aback.

“What do you mean you don’t know how to feel?”

Marinette bites her lip as she tries to find the right words.

“It’s just… I definitely want her lies to be exposed. I definitely want to face the consequences of her actions, but do I want her to be humiliated?… A big part of me knows it’s wrong and they shouldn’t do it… but a small part of me wants them to.” The last part was so quiet Chat Noir nearly missed it.

Chat Noir looked appalled. 

“Marinette! How could you say that!”

“It’s not like I don’t know that it’s bad to think that! It’s just…,” she pauses for a moment. “She hurt me. Isolated me. Villainized me. I have a right to at least feel like this.” 

Marinette was now close to tears.

“And what do you mean by I shouldn’t be around them? I understand their plan is flawed and they shouldn’t go through with it, but they’re people that I care about. I’m not just going to drop them. Unlike some people,” she bitterly added.

Chat Noir felt bitter again, he didn’t want Marinette to care about them, especially Félix.

“They aren’t good people. They will only corrupt you!”

That wasn’t the right set of words to say, because now Marinette was fuming.

“I will not let you say such things about my friend and my  **boyfriend** !” Chat felt a part of his heart crack when she called Félix her boyfriend. “Alec and Félix listened and  **believed** me when my so-called-friends didn’t! Félix introduced me to other people who actually care about me, who listen, who loves me unconditionally, people who don’t just blindly follow some stranger they known for not even a week before just ditching me!” 

Chat was in dangerous waters now. He didn’t expect her to get mad at him for trying to warn her. 

“But your friends-”

“Stop, just stop. I know what they’re doing isn’t exactly right, but they were thinking about me when they came up with this plan... it just needs a few changes.”

“Marinette, I understand she did some bad things, but humiliating her will only make you just as bad as her.”

Marinette glared at Chat, making him take a step back.

“Do. Not. Compare. Me. To. Her, “she said with gritted teeth and tears in her eyes. “And did you just ignore everything else I just said? I said I agree that she shouldn’t be humiliated, and that their plan should change! And yes, there is a small part of me that wants to hurt her like she hurt me, and I’m sorry Chat, but I can’t control how I feel, and how I feel is justified. I was nearly akumatized because of her, not once, not twice, no, four times! Four times that I had an emotional breakdown. Four times I felt so alienated. Four times I wanted to just die!”

Her words shocked even herself when they came out of her mouth. Red, hot tears fell down her face as she looked at Chat. Chat Noir felt cold when she said she was nearly akumatized. When she said she wanted to die. He should’ve known. Another part of his heart broke. He should’ve been there for her, but he wasn’t. Now she was crying and it was his fault. He made his princess cry.

He reached out towards her but she pulled away. She rubbed the streaks of tears from her face, until she paused, realizing something.

“How did you know about Alec and Félix’s plan? How do you even know about Lila? I’ve never told you about her.”

‘Shit,’ he thought.

Chat Noir shouldn’t know about Lila, and he can’t say that Chat Noir overheard Alec’s plan since it would confirm to Alec that he was Chat Noir. 

“Well… um- your friend! Your friend Adrien told me about Lila when he accidentally overheard Alec talk about his plan!” He was stretching the truth a bit since it wasn’t really an accident that he heard Alec’s plan since he was following Nino.

Marinette looked unconvinced at first but quickly accepted his excuse. She let out a dry chuckle that confused Chat Noir.

“What’s so funny?”

“It’s just… I haven’t referred Adrien as a friend for a while.”

He felt his heart break even more.

“Y-You don’t think of Adrien as a friend anymore?”

She looks sad as she shook her head.

“No, I can’t. Not after everything that happened.”

“Didn’t you forgive Nino? He hurt you too didn’t he? At least, that’s what Adrien said.”

Marinette ignored how it was weird that Adrien would tell him about Nino and instead explained herself.

“Nino and I have been friends for a long time. We have a history, and even though he broke my trust, we still have a foundation to rebuild that trust. He also apologized, something Adrien hasn’t and I’m pretty sure will never do.”

_ “You didn’t even apologize!” _

“He doesn’t see what he did was wrong, he even thinks  **I’m** in the wrong,” she let out a bitter laugh. “Did you know that I used to have a crush on him?”

‘Marinette liked him?’ He thought. ‘Wait, used to?’ another part of his heart broke for reasons he couldn’t explain. 

“How could you?… I never told you. But I liked him a lot, I was pretty sure I was in love with him. When he told me that we were in it together with Lila I was so happy,” her face became sullen. “But he lied. He was never there for me. He just left me as they ridiculed and bullied me. Adrien abandoned me in the worst possible way. While the others pushed me into the water, he left me to drown. He watched as I sank lower and lower as I struggled, as I tried to gasp for air. I’m just glad I switched schools when I did. I’m glad I have so many good people in my life. I’m glad I found the one I can say “I love you” to and they say it back. ”

That’s when he felt his heart completely shatter as tears rolled down his face. He wanted to argue. He wanted to say she had friends at Françoise Dupont. He wanted to tell her he was there for her. He wanted to say he could be the one for her. But he couldn’t. She was right. His class had hurt her. He had hurt her. He had no one else to blame but himself. He lost her. He lost Nino.

_ You lost two wonderful people in your life. _

He doesn’t deserve their friendships, he doesn’t deserve forgiveness.

_ We can not come back from this. We’ll be lucky to even have her forgiveness let alone her friendship! _

He hurt her.

_ He watched as I sank lower and lower. _

He-

A hand touched his cheek and wiped his tears.

“Chat? Are you ok?”

Her once angry eyes were now filled with worry. 

He doesn’t deserve her. Even after ridiculing her friends, ignoring what she had to say, and just being… awful, she still worried about him.

“I’m so sorry Marinette,” he choked out. Then he left, ignoring Marinette's calls to come back.

* * *

It had been a couple days since Chat Noir visited her as Marinette. She was surprised with how much she shared, and she didn't even realize how much Lila had affected her. She was glad she was in a better place. Chat also hadn’t visited her since that night, she was worried. She couldn’t even ask if he was ok as Ladybug since Ladybug shouldn't know about it and Chat was acting like he usually does, except his flirting has slowly subsided. Don’t get her wrong, she was happy he stopped and respected her wishes, especially since she was dating Félix, but without the flirty remarks, it felt as if he had built a wall between them. Like he was distancing himself from her. What was worse was the akuma attacks had escalated and she and Chat were being rung dry. It had only been six days but there had already been four akuma attacks and with every attack it left them more and more worn out. 

_ “I understand why you can’t trust Alya with the fox miraculous, but what about Nino? Isn’t he amending for his wrong doings?” Asked Master Fu during her visit. _

_ “You’re right heis trying to fix things between us, but I don’t trust him enough with the miraculous. I just can't... not yet at least.” _

_ Master Fu hummed in understandment. _

_ “And Chloé? Will she be receiving the bee miraculous again?” _

_ Marinette bit her lip as she thought about it for a moment. _

_ “Chloé has improved a lot, but she can not be Queen Bee anymore. Hawkmoth could target her and her family. It’s too dangerous.” _

_ “What if she wasn’t Queen Bee?” Tiki piped up. _

_ “What do you mean?” Marinette questioned. _

_ “Well the miraculous can change the way you look depending on the holder. If Chloé has truly changed, then the way she looks will be different. With the new look she could become a new hero. A new persona.” _

_ Marinette and Master Fu thought for a moment. _

_ “If Marinette feels Chloé can take up the bee miraculous again, then trust her judgment.” _

_ Marinette smiled. _

_ “Thank you Master Fu. I’ll try and talk to her about it when the time is right.” _

Although she will most likely have Chloé’s help, she needs to figure out what to do with the fox and turtle miraculous. 

“Claude give me back my sunglasses!”

“Chloé you wear them on the top of your head all the time, they’re basically useless,” Claude said as he dangled the sunglasses out of reach.

Marinette almost forgot where she was. The Quantic Kids, Nino and Chloé were hanging out after school at the park. Claude was messing with Chloé as Alan held Anais back from killing him. Nino and Allegra were talking about music on the grassy field while Félix, his arm around her shoulder, was talking to Alec about a book they both read. She hadn’t confronted Alec or Félix about their plan, she tried multiple times but it was never the right time. 

As she was deep in thought Anais kicked Claude and gave back Chloé her sunglasses. As Chloé and Anais hung out more, their feelings for each other also grew. Marinette smiled as she saw Chloé and Anais looked at each other with utter adoration. She was happy for both of them, especially Chloé. She was making great strives to become a better person, especially since Anais came into the picture. 

“I’m going to get some ice cream,” Alec chimned in. “Does anyone want any?”

A collective sound of “yes’s” and their different orders were called out from the group. 

“Ok, Félix, come with me to help carry the ice cream.”

Félix nodded his head in agreement as he stood up and started walking with Alec to buy the ice cream.

‘This is my chance,’ Marinette thought as she rushed over to them. 

“I’ll come to help!”

Alec and Félix looked at each other.

“Uh, sure,” Alec said with a shrug. 

When they walked a far enough distance from the group Marinette grabbed their arms and dragged them to a nearby, secluded alley.

“Ok, what are you-?”

“Marinette is there something wrong-?”

“I know about your plan.”

Alec and Félix froze. 

“Our plan?” Alec asked.

“Yes, the plan to expose Lila? I heard from Ch- I mean a friend.”

Alec gave an annoyed huff as Félix tried to explain himself.

“We were going to tell you, but we just wanted to make sure everything was in place before we informed you and the others.”

“I’m glad you’re trying to help me and expose her lies, but I don’t want you to humiliate her.”

“And why not? After everything she did to you?” Alec asked, his nails digging into his palms. 

“I’ll admit, there is a part of me that wants to hurt her… but I don’t want to become her- I can’t become her.”

Félix sighed in understandment.

“If that’s what you want then we’ll stop-”

“No.”

Marinette and Félix turned to Alec in shock.

“What do you mean “no”?” Marinette asked in shock.

“I mean no. She needs to be stopped, and the only way to do it is by hurting her in any way possible,” Alec said through gritted teeth, his nails were now breaking skin.

“Alec she doesn’t-”

“She needs to be stopped! She needs to be hurt! After everything! Everything she’s done!” Alec seemed hysterical, blood running from where his nails dug.

“Alec you need to calm down, you’re hurting yourself,” Félix said as he tried to get Alec to stop.

“Félix she hurt her. She hurt her so much it killed her. She- she-!” Alec was sobbing now as Félix tried to calm him down.

“Alec what are you talking about? I’m here, look I’m alive. Lila hasn’t hurt me for a while” Marinette tried to reason.

“You don’t understand, you don’t understand! She killed her! She killed her!”

“Alec who did she-?”

"She-"

"Alec please-"

"Lila-"

“Lila didn’t kill-”

“LILA KILLED BRIDGETTE!” 

Marinette and Félix froze in shock.

“What?” Félix choked out.

Alec was choking on his words as he gripped onto Félix’s shirt.

“Lila killed Bridgette, she killed her. Everything aligned, everything was too much to be coincidence. Everything Lila did to Marinette sounded too familiar to what happened to Bridgette. Everything that happened to Bridgette was because of Lila. She was in Italy at the same time. They went to the same school. They had the same class. She was there and she lied about Bridgette bullying her. She lied about Bridgette and isolated her, and hurt her until she killed herself. I don’t have any real evidence, but she did it. I know she did it. Lila drove her to suicide. I’m telling you- she -she,” Alec couldn’t say anything else, his voice trapped in his throat as his tears burned on his face. He looked completely broken as he fell to the floor.

Marinette didn’t know too much about Bridgette. The only thing she knew about her was that she was Félix’s first love, and that she commited suicide after an experience that sounded too similar to hers. 

Félix looked as broken as Alec, face white as a sheet as he took in everything Alec said. He was right. It was too much to be a coincidence. Lila drove Bridgette to suicide. She killed her.

Marinette slowly approached Alec. She put her hand on his shoulder. He tensed up. She slowly wrapped her arms around Alec and gave him a hug. 

“I know you miss her, and I know it still hurts. But hurting Lila? It wouldn’t make her happy. It won’t bring her back.”

Alec sat there, crying. And then he completely crumbled.

“I miss. Oh god, I miss her. I miss her so much. I- I want to see her smile, I want to hear her dumb jokes I want... I- I just want her alive,” he sobbed. 

He cried in her arms as she comforted him.

“I’m sorry Marinette, I’m so sorry,” Alec choked out. 

“Shh it’s ok, it’s ok,” she said as she comforted Alec. She looked up to Félix. He broke out of his trance, tears in his eyes. She pulls him down into their mess of limbs. 

Alec finally calmed down, rubbing his tears from his face. 

“Look I’m sorry that-” A hand pulled him up as two other hands grabbed Félix and Marinette. It was Chloé, Nino, and Anais.

“We need to run,” Anais said with tears in her eyes.

“Anais? What happened? Are you-?”

“I said run!” 

She pushed them out of the alley and started to pull them to the exit of the park. Marinette looked back to see a mangled body with three heads was near the alley way they just left. It’s body was a swirl of colors. The three heads roared.

“Akuma,” Marinette whispered. 

The akuma started to throw nearby object randomly, as it wailed in pain. It threw a chunk of a building at Félix, Nino and Chloé. They quickly ducked into another alleyway. The rubble blocked their only exit.

“Félix!” Marinette called out as she rushed to the rubble.

“Oh my god Nino! Chloé! Are you guys ok?” Anais asked frantically.

“We’re fine, just go! Hide!” Chloé called out.

“But-”

“Marinette please, please just go, be safe!” Félix cried out.

She wanted to stay, to free them. But she needed to leave. She needed to transform into Ladybug to actually be of help.

She ran with Alec and Anais.

“How did this happen? Where are Claude, Allegra, and Alan?” Alec asked as they ran and dodged the thrown objects.

Anais looked sad, and bit her lip. 

“That akuma **is** Claude, Allegra and Alan. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A month without updating and I come back and with a tag.
> 
> If you didn't get that you're dead to me. Just kidding! Sorta! But I finally updated! Sorry it took so long I didn't know what I wanted to do with Adrien, so I decided to just hurt him emotionally. And sorry if this chapter seemed rush, I'm doing this instead of homework so I needed to quickly write this. 
> 
> I don't know when I'll update again, but I hope it doesn't take another month! Hahahaha *cries in a corner*


	13. An Absolute Menace

Previously:

_ “How did this happen? Where are Claude, Allegra, and Alan?” Alec asked as they ran and dodged the thrown objects. _

_ Anais looked sad. _

_ “That akuma is Claude, Allegra and Alan. _

* * *

“What?!” Marinette exclaimed as a piece of a building flown by them.

“As much as I want to hear about what happened, we need to hide first!” Alec yelled as a fake horse from the merry-go-round flew over their heads.

“There!” Anais called out. She pointed out the fountain.

They all hid behind the fountain and tried to catch their breath.

“How did this even happen? How did all three of them got akumatized?” Marinette asked with batted breathe

Anais bit her lip.

“When you guys left, we got suspicious since you were so adamant on going with them. When you guys went into the alleyway we hid. We heard about the plan and how you were against it. Nino looked sick, so I assumed he must’ve been apart of it. We didn't know if we should be hearing it so we contemplated with whether we should just leave or now. Then Alec had a breakdown. We were about to reveal ourselves when Alec’s breakdown started to get worse, but that’s when we heard it, about Lila killing Bridgette,” Anais started to tear up. “And we froze. Everything he said made so much sense… Everything connected… And… and we finally knew who killed our friend. And it hurt. It hurt so much, and that’s when the akuma came. And- I swear… I was about to be akumatized too before Chloé pulled me away and snapped me out of my trance… but it was too late for the others. It went into Allegra’s bracelet and somehow they all fused together into… that.”

Marinette looked over the fountain at her broken friends. They were causing destruction to anything that it came in contact with, and everytime they touched someone, said person’s body turned into a white, but soon goes through a ray of colors until the person turned completely black as they screamed in agony and collapsed onto the floor, twitching and broken. Marinette shivered. 

“This is all because of Lila!” Anais exclaimed. “It’s all her fault! She turned them into an akuma! She hurt Bridgette! She- Lila… I-I can’t believe she killed Bri,” her voice was broken and crumbled into herself.

Alec looked distraught.

“Anais I’m so sorry you guys had to find out like this, if I had known my breakdown would… if I had known that stupid plan could’ve lead up to this I wouldn’t have- I just.. I’m so sorry-” 

“Alec you don’t need to apologize,” Marinette cut in sternly. “This isn’t your fault. None of it is.”

Alec looked Marinette sadly.

“But-”

Before Marinette could say anything, they were both cut off when the piece of the fountain above them broke. It was the akuma. It looked at them and broken wail pierced their ears. It’s attention soon turned to Marinette and reached out for her. 

“Don’t you dare touch her!” a voice called out as a baton hit the akuma. It was Chat Noir. The akuma let out another broken wail and went to attack Chat Noir. Another piece of the fountain was broken as they fought. 

“Marinette look out!” Anais cried out.

The broken piece flew right towards her. Before she could be completely flatten she jumped out of the way, causing her to split apart from Alec and Anais. She needed to quickly turn into Ladybug. She looked at Alec and Anais before running the other way.

“Marinette!” Anais called out in distraught. Alec grabbed her before she could run after her and went another way. 

Marinette bit the inside of her cheek as she continued to run. When she found a safe and hidden place Tiki flew out.

“Marinette! You need to quickly transform and help Chat Noir!”

“I know Tiki. Spots on!”

She transformed into Ladybug, and went out the Chat Noir.

As she went to him, he had hit the akuma into a building.

“M’Lady! Thank goodness you’re here!”

“The akuma is in the bracelet, we need to quickly break it but we can’t let the akuma touch us or else we’ll end up like the rest of its victims.”

“Alright what’s the plan?”

She thought about it for a moment.

“I have something, but it would mean I’d have to leave you alone with the akuma.”

He looked conflicted for a moment before nodding 

“I’ll hold it off as long as I can, but hurry,” a loud wail came from where he hit the akuma to. “I don’t think it’s very happy with me.”

She nodded and quickly went to her destination.

“Master Fu!”

“Marinette? What’s wrong?”

“There’s an akuma and I need the Fox and Turtle miraculous.”

He quickly grabbed the boxes with the miraculous and handed them to her’.

“Have you found people suitable for the miraculous’?”

She smiled.

“I think so.”

She swung back to the park and frantically started searching for the people she was looking for. She found them in an alleyway.

“-can’t believe you didn’t let me go after Marinette!” Anais cried as she kept on hitting Alec on the shoulder.

“For the ninth time the fountain was in the way! By the time we went around it Marinette would either be way ahead of us and we’d lose her or she would've waited for us and possibly get herself hurt! She was going in the direction of the exit, she’s in a safer place then here- And stop hitting me!”

She jumped down.

“Ladybug! Oh my god thank god you’re here! My idiot brother ditched-”

“Do I have to explain myself a tenth time?!”

“-our friend Marinette and she’s all alone and she could be hurt!”

“Marinette is fine, I saw her run towards her family bakery.”

Anais let out a sigh of relief while Alec started rubbing his abused shoulder.

“I need your help. Both of you,” she held out the boxes with the fox and turtle miraculous. “Anais and Alec Blanchet, I offer you two the fox and turtle miraculous.”

Alec looked surprised while Anais looked like she would faint at any moment. 

“I-ah- it’s- Rena- the- Cara- What?” Anais stumbled out.

She smiled as she quickly deciphered what Anais was trying to say.

“Rena has been permanently retired while Carapace will be on leave for a while, I need you two to take up the roles and promise not to ever tell anyone your identities.”

Anais was still in shock.

“But are you sure you want me? I know I talk big smack a lot, but I do art, and that doesn’t really translate to muscles, or endurance, or well, anything besides carpal tunnel.”

“Dear lord Anais,” he quickly grabbed the box with the fox miraculous. “Half our friend group is an akuma and Ladybug had to leave Chat Noir alone to fight off an akuma, just grab the damn box,” he looked Ladybug in the eyes. “I swear on my life that I would never tell anyone of my secret identity.”

“Uh, what he said,” she said as she grabbed the box with the turtle miraculous.

She smiled as they opened the boxes.

“Hi I'm Trixx, the fox kwami!"

"And I am Wazz, the turtle kwami."

Anais leans closely to Alec.

“I think the akuma is letting out a gas that’s making us hallucinate ‘cause I can see talking floating beanie babies.”

Wazz rolled his eyes..

“How rude, we are gods of this world.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Ladybug cut in “To transform with the Fox Miraculous you must say “Trixx, let’s pounce!”, as for the Turtle Miraculous, you must say “Wazz, shell on!”.

They both nod and put on the jewelry.

“Trixx, let’s pounce!”

“Wazz, shell on!”

A bright light spread around them as they transformed. Anais wore a green skin tight suit like ladybug’s with reinforced armor that mimicked the front of a shell on her torso and chest with her actual shell on her back. Her hands and hers had a darker shade of green that looked like gloves and thigh high boots. Like Carapace she had a hood over her head that covered her now neon green hair. A green mask covered her eyes. Alec’s bottom half was a similar to Rena Rouge’s but with a brown belt that his tail was attached to. His top was sleeveless and his gloves brown and fingerless. His tattoos, once tribal and fire like, were now small foxes that wrapped around his arms. His hair was orange with white frosted tips and bright orange and white ears laid on top of his head. He wore a similar mask as Rena Rouge. They looked at each other then at themself. 

“Well, if people didn’t know I was gay before, they know now.”

“Why is my hair green?”

“Come on, we have to hurry. To activate the fox’s powers you say “mirage” and play the flute, to active the turtle’s powers you say “shell-ter”, got it?”

They nod.

“Good, let’s go.”

They rushed out of the alley way to a struggling Chat Noir and an akuma on top of him, blocked by his baton. Ladybug threw her yo-yo and it wrapped around the torso of the akuma. She harshly tugged on the string of her yo-yo causing the akuma to fly off of Chat Noir. The akuma roared as it flew and Ladybug unattached her yo-yo from the akuma.

Anais ran towards Chat Noir and helped him up.

“Good you guys- You’re not Carapace,” he turned to Alec. “And you’re not Rena Rouge.”

Alec rolled his eyes.

“Nooooo, how’d you know? What gave it away?” His voice dripping with sarcasm. 

Chat Noir clicked his tongue. 

“Not now guys, we need to find a place to talk about the plan,” Ladybug cut in.

They all followed her to the roof of a building. 

“Ok, but who are they m’lady? Are you sure you want to bring in newbies with such a difficult akuma?”

“I trust them, you just gotta trust me.”

Chat Noir sighs.

“I trust you with my life.”

“And I trust my life with you. As for their names…”

“Call me Zorro,” Alec, or Zorro, chimned in.

They all turned to Anais.

“I literally just became a hero five minutes ago, and you expect me to already have a name? And how did you even come up with that? Did you fantasize about this or something?” 

“It literally translates to “fox” in spanish, you would know if you actually paid attention during our lessons testa capitis.”

“There, that’s my name, Testa Capitis. Spanish for something.”

“One, it’s Latin. Two, it means “shell head”, but since you want it so bad, I’m fine calling you shell head, shell head,” he said with a smirk.

“Why do you know so many languages?!” She exclaimed.

“Ok, now that we have done our introductions, we need to talk about the plan. Chat, Testa-”

“God dammit it’s sticking!”

“-we will be hiding in the trees while Zorro creates a mirage of Lila. Once the akuma comes charging at fake Lila, we’ll jump out and break the bracelet as best we can. ”

“I would like to point out, I don’t know how to play the flute.”

“Just call out “mirage” and blow on it. It’s magic, you don’t need to know how to play it,” Ladybug explained

“Why are you making a mirage of Lila?” Chat Noir asked.

“Yeah, they never met her so they won’t have a reason to charge at her,” Testa Capitas chimned in. 

“Shoot, I forgot about that. Zorro, have you met Alya? Nino’s girlfriend?”

He nodded.

“You need her to make her too and have her call out Lila’s name so they know it’s her.”

“Got it.”

“Woah, woah, woah. Can someone please explain why we’re using a fake Lila as bait?”

“Long story short, the akuma, they found out Lila could be an accomplice to their friend’s death,” Testa Capitas said bitterly. 

Chat Noir paled.

“She did what?!”

“Look, we don’t have time for this, let’s go,” Zorro chimned in.

Chat Noir opened and closed his mouth a few times before agreeing. They all what to assigned spots near the rampaging akuma. Zorro looked at the flute and brought it to his mouth.

“Mirage.” He called out quietly and blew on the flute. 

Two figures began to form, one looking like Lila and another looking like Alya. He made the run out of his hiding spot so the akuma can see.

“Come on Lila! We have to go!” Fake Alya exclaimed.

The akuma’s attention was drawn to the mirage.

“<strike> _ **Lila** _ </strike> ,” the akuma said with distorted voice. Zorro shivered. That was his friends’ voices. “ <strike> _ **Lila!** _ </strike>” the akuma roared and rushed towards them. Zorro used them to lead them to where the others were hiding. Once the akuma was in the targeted area they jumped down. Chat Noir was the closer and charged at the akuma and reached out for the bracelet,

“Catacly-,” the akuma wiped it’s head and hit him directly on his chest, causing him to fly back and his body turned into a pure white.

His body hit the floor and he started to scream in agony as his body started to change color. 

“Chat!” Ladybug called out, however the roar of the akuma stole her attention as it was racing towards her. 

“Shell-ter!” Testa called out as her shield blocked the oncoming attack.

The akuma kept on attacking at the shield.

“Do you have another plan Ladybug ‘cause I don’t think this shield is going to hold!” Testa said as she saw cracks on their barrier. 

“I-,” she stood frozen in place as Chat Noir’s screams of pain filled her head. She didn’t know what to do.

Suddenly an object was thrown at the back of the akuma’s head. It was Zorro’s flute.

“Hey! Why don’t you go after someone your own size!”

The akuma, no longer interested in the two heroes started charging at Zorro.

“Shit shit shit shitshitshitshitIdidnotthinkthisthrough!!!” Zorro exclaimed as the akuma started to chase Zorro. 

The shield drop and Testa’s bracelet started to beep. 

“You both have five minutes, you need to recharge and come back,” Ladybug stated.

“What about you?” Testa asked with worry.

“I’ll be fine,” she picked up the fallen flute and ran towards the akuma. “Zorro catch!” She threw the flute towards Zorro.

“What-?!” The flute hit Zorro square on the face, Ladybug winced. “Why the heck did you throw it?! You could have just passed it or something!”

“Sorry! You and Testa need to recharge, and hurry! I’ll distract the akuma!”

He nodded as he started to follow Testa to a hiding place.

“Come at me!” Ladybug yelled, drawing the akuma’s attention. She dodged and danced around the akuma for what felt like forever. She needed to call out Lucky Charm as soon as she can, but she can’t as the akuma kept on attacking her. 

“Ladybug!” Testa’s voice rang from her left. She lost her rhythm and fell onto the ground. Tha akuma crowded over her. She was cornered. She braced for an attack when the akuma was tackled to the ground by a dark purple figure. It was Chat Noir.

“Run!” He said through his screams as his body turned completely black. 

She was hesitant at first before she quickly took the opportunity to regroup with the others. The heroes quickly went to the roofs to catch their breaths. 

“We need to hurry up and de-evilize the akuma,” Ladybug said through batted breathes. “Lucky Charm!” A framed picture fell in her hands. She inspected the photo. It was with everyone in the Quantic Group all happily laughing, she recognize everyone in the group besides one girl. Zorro looked at the photo and took in a sharp breath.

“I think I know what to do,” he said quietly. 

He jumped down from the building and took out the flute. 

“Mirage,” he whispered and blew on the flute. 

A single figure formed. A blue haired girl with long pigtails stood before them. She started to walk towards the akuma. 

The akuma turned its attention towards the girl and it froze.

“<strike> _ **Bridgette** _ </strike>,” it said sounding tired. 

She smiled.

“Hi guys. Did you miss me?”

It made a gurgling noise.

“I’m sorry that I had to go, but just know, I’m always with you guys. Even if I’m really not.”

The akuma fell to the floor and cried. She crouched down with the akuma.

“I love you guys. I love you guys so much,” she said with a broken voice.

The akuma wailed as it crumbled onto the floor. Testa Capitas took the opportunity and grabbed the bracelet. Tears in her eyes as she broke it. The akuma split apart leaving three broken people. Ladybug caught the butterfly in her yo-yo and de-evilized it.

“Bye bye little butterfly,” she whispered. “Miraculous Ladybug!”

A light went across Paris as everything broken was fixed. The victims all turned back to normal as the light washed over them. Everything was fixed, well, almost everything. Ladybug’s heart hurt as she saw her friends cry in front of the Bridgette mirage, begging her to forgive them. Allegra brought the bracelet close to her chest as she did it.

“Guys!” a voice called out. It was Chloé. 

Chloé, Nino, and Félix rushed over to the three and comfort them along with a swarm of reporters. 

“Bridgette?” Félix asked in shock.

The mirage quickly went away when a red eye Zorro came closer to the group.

Reporters jumped at the sight of the new heroes but one glare from Zorro quieted them down. 

Nino looked at Testa Capitas with shock and hurt in his eyes. But pushed all the pain away as he knew he didn’t deserve the miraculous. 

“Do you know where are our other friends are?" He asked. "One is a tall girl with pink hair, another is a girl with blue pigtails, and a boy with tattoos.”

“They’re fine,” Testa Capitas said. “We brought them to a safe place.”

Ladybug looked at the group with sad eyes when she heard a groan.

“Chat! Are you ok?” She asked with worry.

He had tears in his eyes and looked like he was about to collapse. 

“I’m fine… I… I got to go,” he said quickly as he rushed away. 

She called out for him but he ignored her. She was worried about her partner before, but now she had a sinking feeling her stomach for her partner. 

Her earrings beeped.

“We have to go soon,” she told the other two heroes. She turned to the reporters“I would like to introduce you to the new heroes of Paris Zorro and Testa Capitas.”

“And now I’m officially “shell head” to Paris. You happy now Al-Zorro?”

He smiled.

“Very.”

“Why I oughta-!”

“Okay!” she said pulling Testa Capitas away from Zorro. “We must go now. Bug out!” 

They left and hid in an alleyway. Testa and Zorro destransformed. 

“We should hurry up Alec, we don’t need to worry them any more than we already have,” she said as she handed the turtle miraculous to Ladybug.

“Keep it for now. I want you to get to know your kwami.”

Anais looked at Ladybug then at Wazz.

“Thanks Ladybug,” she said with a smile.

“You go on ahead,” Alec said. “I’m going to look for Marinette and we’ll catch up with you.” 

Anais nodded and left as Wazz hid in her hoodie. 

He handed her the fox miraculous as her earrings beeped. 

“Alec, as I told Anais, keep it. You should get to know your kwami if you’re going to keep on being a hero.”

He shook his head.

“I understand why you gave it to me this time, you needed quick help, but I don’t deserve it.”

“Alec, yes you do you’re a good person-”

“How can you say that after what I done? What I tried to do,” he said with sad eyes. 

Her earrings beeped again. 

“Alec, I need to go. We’ll talk about this later.”

"Please, just take the necklace back."

"Alec, no. I have to go, I'm going to destransform-"

“Marinette just destransform here.”

She froze. 

“I’m not-”

He held up his hand.

“I know. Don’t try and lie to me Marinette.”

She looked at him as she tried to read him, trying to find any trace of hesitation.

“Tiki spots off,” she said quietly. 

Tiki flew out to face Marinette.

“Marinette! You shouldn’t have-”

“He already knew, there’s no point in lying to him,” she turned to face him. “How did you find out?”

He shrugged.

“By accident. I put two-and-two together when you disappeared during the akuma attack at the restaurant and why you were so adamant with leaving class during an akuma attacks across the city. That’s why I forced Anais to run the opposite way when you ran. I knew you needed to transform and turn into Ladybug.” 

“You can’t-”

“Relax. I won’t tell anyone,” he said when she gave him a look before she let out a sigh of relief. “But I stand my ground when I said I don’t deserve this. I’m not fit to be a hero. I tried to do something that would’ve turned me into a monster.”

She brought her hand to his shoulder.

“Alec… People make mistakes… you were driven by pain and grief… but you saw what you were doing was wrong and you’re repenting now. You’re a good person.”

He started to tear up again.

“I am so sorry Marinette.”

She smiled.

“It’s alright Alec. I forgive you.”

He wiped the tears from his eyes. 

“Can you give me a minute alone before I go? I want to calm down a bit, I’ll catch up.”

She nodded and was about to leave the alleyway before she paused.

“Hey Alec?”

“Yeah?”

She bit her lip.

“Since you know that I’m Ladybug… do you know who’s Chat Noir.”

He was silent for a moment before shaking his head.

“I told you, I only found out you were Ladybug by accident. I never met Chat Noir outside of the mask from my knowledge.”

“Oh… ok,” she said as she left.

Alec slumped onto the alley wall.

“You lied.”

He turned to look at the fox kwami.

“Pardon?”

“You lied about not knowing Chat Noir’s identity and how you figured out how she was Ladybug. I can tell a lie when I see one.”

He let out a dry chuckle.

“I wasn’t exactly lying when I said my reasonings… however I wasn’t exactly sure, only suspicious. I only knew for sure when I found out about Chat Noir’s identity. Like I said. It was by accident.”

“Ok, so why did you lie?”

“Because when they reveal themselves is not my business. I may have threaten Adrien to expose him, but I wouldn’t have gone through with it. I’m not stupid. Emotionaly constipated, but not stupid. I-I just wanted to- I don't know… scare him? See this is why I feel like I don't deserve to be a hero. I'm not a good person."

Trixx stayed silent for a moment.

"Ok… I'll be honest, you're not exactly the best person… but you're still a good person. If you weren't Marinette wouldn't have gave you a miraculous."

He scoffed. 

"She gave Alya a miraculous, and she's an ass."

Trixx looked shocked.

"How did you-?"

"Who else would she trust a miraculous with besides her former best friend?"

Trixx was silent.

"So do you know who Carapace is?"

"Yeah. I'm still kind of shocked that she gave the turtle miraculous to someone else, but I guess she still has a long way to forgiving Nino."

Trixx floated to his shoulder and sat on it.

"I still think you're a good person no matter how much you be little yourself."

He looked at the kwami and let out a dry chuckle.

"I hope you're right."

He left and Trixx quickly hid. He was able to catch up with Marinette before she was with the group.

"Marinette! Alec! You're ok!" Allegra called out as she jumped on them and pulled them into a tight hug. "I am so sorry I got akumatized! I could've hurt you!"

"We're sorry too," Alan chimed in.

"I hope we didn't hurt you," Claude said with worry.

"Guys it's ok. You don't need to apologize for having a bad moment," Marinette reassured.

"That's an understatement," Alec muttered. 

As Marinette broke out of Allegra's hug, Félix enveloped her in a bone crushing hug.

"Thank god you're ok. I was worried the entire time. Please tell me you were in a safe place the entire time."

She bit her lip.

"Of course I was," she said as Alec gave her a look. “I’m fine. I promise.”

Félix slowly loosened his grip on Marinette and looked at the group of friends.

“We need to talk.”

Alan wiped off a few stray tears.

“About what?”

“About Bridgette.”

They froze, even Chloé and Nino tensed up as they vaguely knew about the deceased girl.

Alec looked at Félix warily, not sure if they should talk about their friend so soon after the akuma attack.

“Félix… I don’t think-”

“No, Alec, we do need to talk about it… You were right. We can’t just make our time with her another memory. I want to talk about her. I want to talk about our time with her. I don’t want everyone to pretend that she’s not apart our lives anymore, even if she isn’t physically… she’s still there,” his voice quiet by the end.

Allegra started crying again.

“I’d like that.”

Alan smiled.

“Me too.”

As the OG Quantic group all chimned in their agreements, Nino, Marinette and Chloé stood on the sidelines. They felt out of place and decided to leave. Anais grabbed Chloé’s wrist.

“Are you leaving?”

Chloé looked back and gave her a sad smile.

“Of course. You guys need your time alone with each other to talk about your friend. We’ll give you your space.”

“I-I want you there,” she said, shocking Chloé. She turned to Marinette and Nino. “I want all of you to be with us. I want you to get to know our friend. I want to share a part of our lives with you guys. I-” she choked. “I want to tell her story.”

The three looked at Anais then at the others. They all nodded in agreement. 

Chloé looked at Anais with soft eyes.

“Okay.”

* * *

They decided Marinette’s room was the best place to talk. They all settle into a spot in the room in silence before a phone rang. Nino’s phone was going off and he had to turn it off.

“So where do we start?” Claude asked.

The OG Quantic Group thought for a moment. 

“How about how you met her?” Nino chimned in.

They all looked at Nino, then to Alec.

He sighed.

“Guess that’s my department,” he stretched his arms. “I met her, about six years ago? It was at my- our dance old class. While the class was stretching, our teacher brought in a blue haired girl to our class and introduced her as Bridgette. And oh my god she was literally bouncing off the walls. She is like if you gave a kid an endless supply of candy and soaked that in coffee. And with my luck, I got partnered with her to be her stretching partner. Don’t forget I had major anxiety, but I was the only student who didn’t have a partner so the teacher paired us up. We didn’t become friends at first since I was a little shit and had major social anxiety. But over time we became close friends. She could tell I wasn’t exactly comfortable with her at first, so she slowly eased into the friendship and backed off when she was being too much,” he smiled. “She was my first friend that wasn’t my sister. After a couple months of keeping her to myself Anais finally found out about her and asked- no demanded to meet her.”

“I did not!” Anais said defensively.

“You said, and I quote since this has been engraved into my head, “Introduce me to your friend unless you want me to bug bomb you”.”

“What’s a bug bomb?” Marinette asked curiously.

“I didn’t know either at the time so I said “no”. She walked out of the room, and five minutes later she brings a jar full of bugs and dumps it near my only exit. Should've known it was something bad when she put the words "bug" and "bomb" together.”

“Yeah and you screamed so loud I swear you broke a few windows.”

Alec shivered.

“You don’t know true fear until you are clinging onto a person as they threaten to drop you on certain death and she wouldn’t have gotten rid of the bugs unless I said “yes”.”

Anais rolled her eyes as Chloé laughed .

“They were just bugs, get over yourself.”

“Oh my god you’re a menace!” Chloé said through her fit of laughter. 

“Yes, but I’m your menace.” 

Chloé playfully hit her as she blushed.

“That you are.”

Claude faked gagged.

“Alec, continue the story before I puke.”

Alec rolled his eyes at his sister. 

“Anyways, as you can tell, I told her she could meet Bridgette. When I brought Bridgette over to our house Anais also brought her friends, Claude and Alan. To my utter dismay not only did they get along, they were feeding off each other’s energy. It was too much. Luckily Alan was more chill then Claude and Anais so I wasn’t completely alone. We got along swimmingly and our group only grew when I met Allegra at a dance audition. She was super nervous and refused to talk to anyone, so I did what anyone else would do: avoid her and pretend like she wasn’t there.”

“You did what?” Nino asked with a snicker. 

“Hey, still had major social anxiety back then, there was no way I was going to talk to someone at my free will. I continued to avoid her when I notice she started randomly crying. So I decided to suck it up and start comforting her since I knew Bridgette would do the same thing.”

“I would like to add some context to this,” Allegra cut in. “I was crying because I was lonely and that it was my first audition without my parents with me. And you did not comfort me, all you did was stand next to me awkwardly as I cried. I thought you were a total weirdo.”

“And yet here you are, we’ve been friends since!”

Allegra scoffed.

“Yeah only because Bridgette came with you during one of our rehearsals and she asked you to introduce her to me.”

“Hey, I did it didn’t I?”

“No. All you did was mumbled and hide behind Bridgette.”

“OKAY, enough of that. After Allegra became acquainted with the rest of the group, she introduced us to Félix.”

“Oh my god, I still remember Bridgette’s face when she first saw Félix,” Claude laughed. 

“It was love at first sight,” Alan said with a smile.

“Yeah, except the fact Félix hated everyone especially Bridgette,” Anais added.

“I did not hate you guys,” Félix said.

“Félix, you once told me, to my face, that you hated me,” Anais said. 

“And me.”

“Me too.”

“You said it to me like six times.”

Félix scowled.

“Okay, I’ll admit. You guys weren’t my favorite people. Only because you annoyed me, and I only went along with you guys because Allegra dragged me to your little get togethers.”

Alec scoffed.

“You hung out with us because you didn’t have any other friends.”

“That-!,” he paused. “Is very true, but you didn’t have to say it.”

They all laughed. 

“Soon enough, Bridgette wormed herself into Félix’s cold, unbeating heart causing him to finally tolerate us. We were as thick as thieves. She was the sun of our little solar system. She was the one we all went to.”

“Yeah, she was the first one I came out to,” Anais said with a smile. “When I found out I liked girls I freaked out. I couldn’t even tell Alec ‘cause I was afraid of his rejection… but I knew no matter what, Bridge wouldn’t have judged me. So I told her. She gave me so much love and so much reassurance. Soon enough, I had the strength to come out to Alec.”

“Do you not remember how you came out to me ‘cause that was definitely not on purpose.”

“Ok can we not bring that-”

“We were walking around the a carnival and there was a booth that sold falafel and humus and when I asked her if she wanted some, she absent mindly said “No thanks, I’m gay, but not gay enough to eat hummus.”” 

Everyone burst out in laughter as Anais blushed.

“Ok, but then you responded with “Oh, well I am, I’m gonna get some.”!” 

The roar of laughter grew louder. 

“I stood there frozen as you got your stupid falafel and humus trying to figure out what the hell just happen!”

“That falafel and humus were delicious! Do not diss it! And you’re just jealous I have the max level of gay to eat humus!”

Anais threw her hands up in defeat.

“So that’s how we came out to each other!”

Claude wiped tears of laughter from his eyes.

“Oh my god, that gets me everytime.” 

“Oh shut up Claude you came out as bi to Brit during a 5k and when you realized you came out to her you started running like a madman then Brit had to drag you the rest of the way.”

Claude blushed as Alan and Allegra laughed at him.

“Do you want me to bring up how you two came out Ms. Talk about how hot Zendaya is for twenty minutes, and Mr. “I’m not the type of pan that can fly:” as he chickens out of skydiving,” Claude fired at them. 

Alan and Allegra looked embarrassed before they started throwing Marinette’s throw pillows at him. Soon everyone was throwing pillows at each other as fits of laughter filled the room. As the laughter died down, so did their energy as they laid on the floor trying to catch their breath. They laid there telling more stories about Bridgette. They smiled at the memories as warmth filled their chests as they talked about their friend. Claude had just told a story on how he tried to do magic at a school talent show with Bridgette as his assistant. Apparently they had accidentally set off the fire alarm when they used too much of the smoke machine. Bridgette somehow managed to finish off their act before everyone had to evacuate. 

“She sounded amazing,” Marinette said with a smile.

“She was amazing,” Félix said. 

There was silence. 

“I’m sorry about what happened to her. She didn’t deserve to have died like that,” Marinette said sadly. 

Allegra sucked in a sharp breath.

“No one does…,” she said quietly

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Nino said hesitantly. “Why was your akumatized object that bracelet?”

Allegra looked at the bracelet sadly.

“This was Bridgette’s. She gave it to me when she accidentally broke one of my bracelets. I didn’t mind, telling her it was ok… but she insisted. Saying that once we get to collége everyone will know were were friends since Bridgette would get another one that looked exactly the same,” she said with a small smile.

Alan smile sadly.

“She was so excited for us to all go to the same collége. She said that we would be together forever,” Alan’s face fell. “Then she told us she had to move. Her dad had to transfer to Italy. We all cried. We were losing our sun. She told us we would still be friends even after she moved. And then after she moved, a few months later- she -she,” Alan choked on his words.

“She killed herself,” Anais finished. “She was barely thirteen and she killed herself. **We** were only barely thirteen when lost our best friend to the cruelty of bullying. And now that we know that Lila-”

“Stop,” Alec interrupted as he sat up. “We can’t do anything involving that. As much as it pains me, we don’t have full proof. But we can unravel her other lies.”

Félix sat up.

“Alec-”

“I’m not saying we go back to our original plan, god no. But she still needs to be stopped in a less emotionally scarring way.” 

“I agree,” Chloé said as she brought herself up. “We have to do something about her before she can do anymore harm then she’s already done.”

“How?” Nino asked “She has everyone wrapped around her finger.”

Alec thought for a moment.

"Plant a seed."

"Plant a seed?" Nino asked confused.

"A seed of doubt. When you hear Lila's story, point out the inconsistency with your classmates, but not with her around. You don't need her to target you. Talk to people privately and slowly let the doubt grow on it's own. Let them slowly figure it out and the burn of guilt slowly eat them until there's nothing left and-!"

"Alec," Marinette said in a disapproving tone.

"Right. Sorry. Got a little heated there," he took a deep breath and calmed down. "Nino will be mainly doing the work since Chloé, because of your reputation, I'm sorry to say, no one will trust you as much as him."

Chloé shrugged.

"I understand. I was horrible. No one wants to hear what I have to say except Sabrina, and even she's starting to ignoring me."

Anais wrapped her arms around Chloé's waist.

"Screw them. I like it when you talk. You're nice and funny."

Chloé smiled at Anais sadly.

"But I wasn't before."

"Well, that's then. not now. You're changing for the better, and I think that's something to note. I wouldn't like you as much as I do if you were a bad person."

Chloé's smile turned warm as the others cooed at the two.

"You two should just start dating already," Félix said with a soft smile.

Chloé and Anais blushed.

"We're not going to date just because you told us to," Anais said as her face heated up.

"I mean, I'd be ok with it," Chloé said quietly.

Anais turned her head to Chloé so fast she could've gotten whiplash.

"You'd be up to it? Dating me? Really? No joke?"

Chloé nodded sheepishly.

Anais jumped from her spot and rejoiced.

"Suck it Alec! I started dating before you did!"

Alec stuck his tongue at her.

"Just you wait. I'll find an awesome boyfriend and rub it in your face."

Anais stuck her tongue out in response.

"So? I have an even MORE awesome and REAL girlfriend!"

Chloé was blushing heavily now.

"Can we please go back to the plan?" She asked as her hands covered her face.

"Right, sure. As I was saying, planting a seed of doubt. Nino, you need to find a handful of your class that might have at least one working braincell. How are they anyways? Last I saw them they were gaping like idiots.”

“You’ve met them?” Marinette asked surprised.

“And you didn’t kill them?” Claude asked even more surprised. 

Alec rolled his eyes.

“I have some sense of self control.”

“Wait, what do you mean by gaping?” Alan asked curiously.

Nino and Alec looked at each other then laughed.

“What’s so funny? Alec? Stop laughing and tell us why you’re laughing!” Anais said with a pout.

“Okay- the thing is it really isn’t funny it’s just,” Alec said between laughs. “The situation wasn’t funny at all but what I said to get out of it kinda was.”

“Kinda? Dude you literally told everyone you liked dick then walked away!” Nino howled.

“You did what?!” Allegra exclaimed.

“How did it even lead up to that?” Marinette asked confused.

“Well his psycho of a girlfriend was trying to pry on why we he wasn’t hanging out with them and what I was talking about with him. He told her she should probably stop since it wasn’t really her business, and yeah, it wasn’t, and she nearly blew up on him so I randomly yelled-”

“I’m gay!” Nino and Alec said simultaneously.

“Man, I didn’t know what was going on in your head when you yelled that but the looks of everyone’s face was priceless!” Nino laughed. “Juelka actually looked pretty mad now that I think about it.”

“Why would Juelka be mad?” Marinette asked.

“Oh shoot I forgot you weren’t here for this but Rose was outed by some douche from another class who overheard her talking about Juelka with Mylene. Everyone at the school knew by the end of lunch and she was nearly akumatized because of it until Juelka found her and told her she reciprocated her feelings. They’ve been together since and I don’t think she was too keen on the fact that Alya forced Alec to come out like how Rose was.”

“The got together? That’s amazing!” Marinette said excitedly.

“You’re congratulating your bullies getting together?” Chloé said with a raised eyebrow.

“As hurt as I am with them, they’ve been circling each other for so long I’m just relieved they got together.”

“You are way too nice Marinette,” Alan stated.

“Yeah, but that’s why we love her!” Allegra said as she hugged Marinette.

"Wait you said her name is Alya? Isn't that the name that keeps on flashing on your phone?" Claude asked.

Nino picked up his forgotten phone and saw twenty-three missed calls and over fifty texts. He winced.

“Why is she so adamant with contacting you right now?” Anais asked.

Nino looked conflicted. He knew Alya must’ve seen News footage of the new fox and turtle heroes. He didn’t know if he could tell them about them being the former superheroes and that Alya is probably upset that Ladybug replaced them. He knew he didn’t have a miraculous and that he’d most likely wouldn’t ever get one again but there was a danger of Hawkmoth somehow finding out and would target him and his family. 

“I-uh… well.”

“She knew he was at the park and must be worried he was hit by the akuma’s powers,” Alec cut in. “Yeah, he’s really slow with responding to texts, almost like a _ turtle _ and Alya seems to be sorta tricky, sorta like a _ fox _.”

“I don’t think they mean tricky in that context when they decided that tricky was a word to describe a fox,” Félix chimned in.

Nino felt something click. Alec knew he was Carapace. He knew Alya was Rena Rouge and knew why she was calling. He was trying to cover for him.

“Yep, really slow. I am super slow. Ungodly slow. And Alya is a little tricky, like a fox. But not a fox! She’s just-” Alec elbowed him and gave him a look of “shut up”. “Uh yeah. Slow. Plus I wasn’t really sure if I should talk to her at the moment, we sort of had a fight after Alec’s whole “coming out” to the class.” 

“You did?” Alec asked.

Nino shrugged.

“Yeah. She said she didn’t know about you coming out, I said “well you shouldn’t have in the first place” and then she said it was my fault in the first place if only I had just told her where I was going, then I fired back “you don’t need to know where I am 24/7”. It went like that for an hour before she stormed off.”

“Oh,” Alec said a bit guilty. 

“Don’t feel bad dude. She’s too stubborn to face the fact that she’s wrong and it’s not really helping that Lila is feeding into her anger.” 

“How does your classmates feel about this? You’re not being ostracized are you?” Allegra asked worried.

“Relax, besides my strained relationship with Alya everyone else is being normal. Everyone besides Alya and Lila, understands why I’m upset with her and they even told me to tell Alec that they’re sorry that you had to come out like that.”

Alec raised both his eyebrows in shock.

“Wow, I’d like them if I didn’t already hate them.”

“Yeah, they suck,” Claude said matter-of-factly. 

“They’re good people…,” Marinette tried to defend. “They just have been lead to the wrong path by a wolf.”

“Marinette if they were good people, they wouldn’t have done all those cruel things to you,” Anais stated. 

Marinette was silent for a moment.

“I guess…”

“You need to stop defending people who don’t deserve it,” Félix said. 

“I-I know… it’s just as much as they hurt me… I missed them.”

Félix wrapped his arms around her.

“Well… if they finally realize what they’ve done was wrong and try to make amends with you, then maybe one day you could be friends again. I’m not saying you have to… but it’s a possibility.”

Marinette nodded. 

“Ok.”

“Hey did we talk about Félix’s bi-curious slash emo phase yet?” Claude ask.

“Claude I will rip your-!”

* * *

They continued to tell stories as the day became night. All their worries seemed to melt away in each other’s presence. Marinette smiled as she went to get more snacks from her empty kitchen as her parents were still in the bakery,

“You seem to be having fun,” Tiki said as Marinette loaded a tray with drinks and baked goods.

“I am…,” she said with a smile. She went sullen for a moment.

“What’s wrong?” Tiki asked, worried.

“I- I want to tell them.”

“Tell them what?”

She paused.

“That I’m Ladybug.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *If you were reading this chapter while I deleted it, I am so sorry. There was a technical difficulty 
> 
> Look who uploaded a week from their last one! I am so proud of myself! (Ignores the fact I use to upload everyday sometimes even twice in a day)
> 
> I asked a few chapters back who you guys thought would fir the Fox and Turtle Miraculous (And only one of you responded. I think. I don't know and I'm too lazy to check.) and they said they Alec with the Fox and Anais with the Turtle. So I did it! Yippee! So welcome to our new heroes Testa Capitas and Zorro! I always refer Testa Capitas and just Testa 'cause it just translate directly to "shell" like the way Carapace does.
> 
> As for the OG Quantic kid's, besides Alan's, coming out story, they were based off my own coming out stories. I know. Not the best way to come out especially you your family. Anais' is when I came out to my dad at a Costco and offered my a humus sample he got from those sample stations and I replied with "Thanks I'm gay, but not humus gay.", I was only suppose to think it, not say it out loud, and I froze. He just looked at me and started eating the humus since he didn't want to waste it. Claude's is when I told my aunt during a 5k and again, by accident, and when I realized it I started running for like, thirty seconds before I started dying ('cause homeboy doesn't go outside) and she proceedingly had to drag me to the finish line. And with Allegra's is when I came out to my grandma and uncle when I, you guessed it, talked about how hot Zendaya is for a solid twenty minutes with my cousin. Yeah... I'm a mess.
> 
> Like always leave criticism in the comments bellow! Love you guys!


	14. Blushing Mess

Previously:

_ “I- I want to tell them.” _

_ “Tell them what?” _

_ She paused. _

_ “That I’m Ladybug.” _

* * *

Tiki was silent.

“Before you say anything- they’re my friends and after everything that happened today I realize I trust them with everything, even my secret identity. Plus Alec already knows and-”

“Ok.”

“- I don’t want to hide it from the rest of them when he-.”

Marinette turned to Tiki, shocked.

“Ok? What do you mean by ok??”

“I mean that I agree that you should tell them.”

Marinette sputtered.

“B-But you always said it was dangerous to tell people my secret identity!”

“Do you want me to disagree with you and say “no you shouldn’t tell them.”?” 

“No! I- I just thought it’d be harder to, you know, convince you?”

Tiki was quiet for a moment.

“You’re right. Alec knows. And that’s why you were even able to transform into Ladybug today. If he hadn’t, it would’ve been more difficult to separate from them and more could've gotten hurt. There could be more akuma attacks like this one when you’re with a friend. They’re very protective over you and they’d wouldn’t let you leave your sight making it impossible to transform without them finding out.” she paused. “And I know how difficult it had been for you when you had to face that Lie-la girl by yourself… and after everything that happened… I thought I lost you. You were so broken and- and I felt so guilty that I couldn’t help you,” he voice cracked. “And then you met them. They brought back the old Marinette. They brought back your smile. You were happy again,” Tiki had tears in her eyes. “You’ve gained a new friend with Chloé, and Nino is trying to fix your old friendship. They’re good for you, and if you think you should tell them, then I trust your judgement. I trust them to keep your secret.”

Marinette looked at her kwami with tears in her eyes. 

“Oh Tiki. You don’t need to feel guilty, you did nothing wrong. And thank you, so much for letting me tell them. It means so much to me to hear that you trust my judgement enough. I love you Tiki.”

Tiki quickly flew to Marinette’s cheek and hugged it.

“I love you too Marinette!”

Marinette brought her hands to her cheek and hugged Tiki back.

Tiki broke away the hug and rubbed her eyes.

"Do you want to tell them now?"

Marinette thought for a moment.

"No. They've already been through a lot today, and I feel I should talk to Nino and Chloé first before I reveal myself to the others."

Tiki nodded in agreement.

"Okay. We should also tell the guardian that we're doing this."

"Got it," she said as she grabbed the tray full of snacks back to her room.

Everyone seemed excited about something and only got more as they noticed Marinette.

"What's got you guys so excited?" Marinette asked as she put down the tray.

"Well, after everything that happened today we decided we needed a day just for fun!" Anais explained. "So that's why tomorrow we're, drum roll please…"

The sound of hands hitting surfaces imitating drums filled the room.

"Going to play laser tag!"

Marinette looked shocked before melting into excitement.

"Really? That sounds like fun!"

"Doesn't it?" Allegra said with a smile. "They opened a new place for laser tag at the mall and there's been great reviews about it!"

"There are obstacle courses!"

"A laser maze!"

"An arcade!"

"A lounge."

"Food stations!"

Everyone turned to Claude and gave him a weird look.

"Food stations?" Alec asked with a raised brow.

"What? I heard they have rockin nachos there. Plus it's food. Food is always exciting."

They all looked at him for a moment.

"Point taken. Food stations!" Anais cheered

They all also cheered. 

"I can't wait for tomorrow!" Alan exclaimed. 

"I know I can't wait to kick your ass Anais!” Claude stated.

Anais scoffed.

“You really think you can beat me? Ha! You don’t stand a chance! And the only ass that is going to be kicked is yours when I get my hands on you!” she yelled as she pounced for him.

Screams and laughter filled the room as Anais chased Claude.

Nino was sitting on the sidelines, laughing as he watched the scene before him. Alec walked over and went to stand next to him

“So are you going to talk to her?” Alec didn’t say the name but Nino knew who he was talking about.

Nino took a deep breath and sighed.

“Not today. I still need some space after our fight, plus I gotta process it myself. By the way… how’d you know? How’d you figure it out?”

Alec snorted.

“Dude you wore goggles, it’s not the best way to cover your face.”

Nino looked at Alec before chuckling. 

“Yeah, you have a point. But what about Alya?”

“The way you two flirted all the time? It’s not too hard to put two-and-two together when you figure out one of you,” Alec said with a smirk. “By the way, how do you feel about you… the new turtle? I know it must be hard to be replaced.”

Nino sighed again.

“Yeah, it sucks, but I understand why. I don’t know how Ladybug found out… but I’m kinda glad she did. Because what we did. What I did. It was inexcusable. And even though Marinette is on the road to forgiving me, I’m still not hero material. I screwed up and I need to face the consequences of my actions.”

Alec looked at Nino. 

“Well, you’re getting better. You’ve gotten better. And that’s a lot more you can say then your girlfriend. I thought you were a great hero and one day maybe you’ll get your miraculous back, after all, the turtle and fox miraculous seem to only be temporary heroes and not permanent ones like Chat Noir and Ladybug.”

“Maybe. But I’m not going to get my hopes up for the impossible. I- I just hope the new heroes will do a better job than us. I hope that they’re people she can truly trust.” 

“Well I would hope so,” he said as he pulled out a very familiar necklace. 

Nino eyes grew big.

“You’re-”

Alec pointed to the loud group. He was pointing in the direction of Anais as she german suplex Claude. Nino noticed she was wearing a new bracelet. The same bracelet he used to wear.

“She’s- but you’re- I,” Nino stuttered out before laughing. “You son of a bitch! Ugh, of course it’s you two. Should’ve realized when I saw your signature glare on Zorro’s face.”

Alec scoffed.

“I do not have a signature glare.”

“You so do! It’s like “shut up or I’ll hurt you” kind of glare.”

“Shut up,” Alec said as he nudged Nino while he laughed. “So I’m assuming you’re okay with it?”

“Of course I’m okay with it. You two are so loyal it’s like you’ve made blood pacts to everyone you love. And even if I wasn’t it’s not like it matters. Ladybug trusts you two with the miraculous’ so she must trust you two,” he said with a shrug. “There’s just something I don’t understand.”

Alec raised an eyebrow.

“And what’s that?”

“Why did you tell me?”

Alec shrugged.

“I don’t know. To tell you that you shouldn’t worry too much about it? To show that your old miraculous is in good hands? To…,” he dragged his hand in his hair. “Give you peace of mind? I just- ugh- I know I probably shouldn’t have told you but I felt like you needed to know. And I trust you,” looks at Nino in the eyes. “I trust you Nino.” 

Nino was frozen.

“Dude, if I wasn’t straight I would’ve totally been swooning for you ‘cause that was beautiful.”

Alec laughed and shoved Nino.

“Ugh, so much for being serious. Speaking of serious I probably need to tell ‘Nais that I kinda told her secret. She’s going to kill me. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m gonna need to tell her you were Carapace so she’d understand a little and give me at least a ten second head start.”

“Yeah sure. What about Ladybug? Are you going to tell her?”

Alec hit his head with his palm.

“Shit, I forgot I swore on my life to secrecy,” Alec groans and mumbles. “Should’ve sworn on something that actually has worth.”

Nino hit Alec on the arm.

“Alec! I thought you were going to therapy for you self-deprecation.”

“Oh, no, I only go for my anxiety and depression. I’m in that office long enough, I do not need to be there for another hour just because I say stuff over half our generation says.”

“You- I - that’s not - ugh,” Nino slumped. “Yeah we do say stuff like that a lot, but it doesn't mean you should still say it, you actually have depression. And your life has worth so shut up.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

They were quiet for a moment. 

“Hey Alec?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks. For telling me. For trusting me. For… for being my friend.”

Alec looked at Nino for a moment before slugging his arm around him.

“I’m glad we’re friends too. Come on. Help me stop Anais from breaking Claude’s legs.”

* * *

Anais stood where they agreed to meet. She felt jittery. Alec had told her that morning that he told Nino that she was Testa and he was Zorro. 

_ “You did what?!” Anais exclaimed. _

_ “Wait! Wait! Wait! Before you skin me alive let me explain! Nino was Carapace!” _

_ Anais paused. _

_ “How the fuck does that make it better?! In fact it makes it worse! What if he’s mad at me for replacing him!” _

_ “He’s not I swear. He understood why he got his miraculous taken. Ladybug must’ve found out what happened with Nino and Marinette. Look I only told him because I wanted him to give him peace of mind that his miraculous went to a kind, loving, amazing, qualified and totally forgiving person, ” he said with a tight smile. _

_ Anais thought for a moment. _

_ “What about Ladybug? We swore on our lives that we wouldn’t tell anyone!” _

_ “Well my life isn’t-” _

_ “Say one self-deprecating thing about yourself and I’ll snap your arm,” she growled. _

_ “Noted. And I told her! After we left and I told you I needed to stop by somewhere.” _

_ “You told me it was to get a refill on your anxiety medication!” _

_ “And I did! I also talked to Ladybug. She was actually cool about. Now that I think about it she was TOO cool about it…,” Alec thought for a moment wondering if Marinette was hiding something. _

_ “Well, if Ladybug says it's okay, then I guess it's okay with me. Next time tell me ahead of time if you do something like this." _

_ "Okay. And 'nais?" _

_ "Yeah?" _

_ "Can you please get off me now?" _

_ Anais had pinned Alec down and twisted his arm behind his back. _

_ "Oh yeah. Sorry," she laughed as she got off him. "Didn't need you running away from me!" _

_ Alec grumbled as he stood up. _

_ "Heads, you're going to the mall alone. Me and Félix have to do something." _

_ "What? No! Don't leave me alone!" _

_ Before Anais could finish her sentence Alec started running towards the limo parked up front. _

_ "Al get back here you asshole! Urgh I hate you, you know!" _

_ "Love you too!" _

Anais sighed loudly. No one else was there yet and she usually had Alec to keep her entertained. She looked around the area of the mall again when she noticed a familiar hat.

"Nino!" Anais called out as she ran towards him. Nino turned around and gave her a wave. "Thank god you're here, I was super bored."

"Where's Alec? Doesn't he usually keep you busy?"

Anaid let out a huff.

"I have no idea. He's somewhere with Félix so it's not Ladybug related from what I can figure out. Speaking of Ladybug," Anais winked badly multiple times.

Nino rolled his eyes and scoffed.

"You make it sound like I have a crush on her. And we probably shouldn't talk about this in such an open place."

“Okay, but we’ll meet up later and you’ll give me pointers right?”

Nino rubbed the back of his neck.

“I don’t know Anais. I’m not sure if I’d be a good idea.”

“Come on please! I need all the help I can get! Please NiNi please! I'll be your student and you'll be my master! Pretty please with a cherry on top!” Anais gave him puppy dog eyes.

Nino stood his ground, but slowly his resolve broke. He sighed.

“Fine, but only if you never call me "Nini" again.”

“Yay!” Anais exclaimed as she scooped him up into a hug and span around.

“Thank you thank you thank you!”

Nino laughed.

“No problem dudette. Now can you please put me down?”

Anais put him down gently.

“Sorry. I’m just so excited!”

“Yeah me too- Alya?”

Anais turned to where Nino was facing. A pretty, and very angry girl with curly brown hair and glasses was rushing towards them as a few other girls quickly followed suit. 

“Alya, what are you-?”

The sound of skin hitting skin could be heard in a twenty-feet radius. This girl, Alya, had just slapped Anais.

“Get away from my boyfriend!” Alya screamed.

“Alya what the hell?!”

Nino and Alya started yelling at each other, but Anais didn’t hear them. She brought her hand to where Alya had slapped her. It stung. She looked up at Alya with a murderous glare that caused the other girls to flinch back.

‘This bitch just slapped me.’

* * *

Alya felt like everything was going wrong for her. First her ex-best friend turned out to be a horrible person, then said ex-best friend had moved schools without telling her. She wouldn’t even pick up her phone and when Alya tried to go to the bakery she was kicked out by the once loving bakers. Alya didn’t care. She has a new and amazing best friend in Lila. However things only got worse for her. A few weeks after Marinette left her boyfriend seemed to be distancing himself from her and the class. She wanted to say something but Lila told her he just needed some space. So she listened. Then she and the class accidently met the friend Nino was hanging out with for the past week. Alec. Something felt off about him, and he and Nino seemed to be keeping a secret. And she wanted to know. She asked about it. Nino told her it wasn’t her business. She felt a surge of anger when he said that. He was definitely hiding something. She tried prying but everything time she did, Nino would keep on telling her it wasn’t her business and got more and more mad at her. They kept at it until Alec came out with his secret. He came out gay. That was his secret. Dread filled Alya’s stomach as she found out what they were discussing. Not because she was homophobic! But because she realized Nino was right. It wasn’t her business. And now she forced someone she just met to come out to, to him, a bunch of strangers. The day after that Nino tried talking to her and told her what she did was wrong. She knew she was in the wrong, but she didn’t want to admit it. She tried to come up with every excuse she can, but as she did it he only got more and more angry. He was getting more and more angry with her. So she ran. She didn’t want to dig a deeper hole then she already had. She knew it was a cowardly move but she couldn’t bare the thought of him completely hating her. She decided after that, they needed space. Day 1: he avoided her. She avoided him back. Day 2: he avoided her again. She continued to give him space. Day 3; he continued to avoid her. She was getting worried. This continued for a week now and he’s still not talking to her. She felt sick. It only got worse when she watched the news the other night. She had to stay home and watch the twins so she wasn’t able to go to the akuma sight. There were new fox and turtle heroes. She was replaced. She noticed Nino in the background with the akuma victims and talking to the new turtle hero. He looked hurt… but understanding? She tried calling him. He didn’t pick up. She tried calling him again. He still didn’t pick up. She continued calling him and texted him a few dozen times before ultimately giving up. He was still ignoring her. He was still mad at her. She felt broken. Alya didn't get much sleep that night as she laid there crying. She was barely able to get out of bed that morning. She wiped the tears from her eyes. No. She wouldn’t be thinking about that now. It was girls day and she doesn’t need to damper the mood with her crying. She walked to the mall and looked around for her friends. She spotted Lila waving at her with the other girls. She rushed towards them.

“Hey! Sorry I’m late! I didn’t get too much sleep last night.”

“It’s ok,” Mylene said.

They all started to walk around the mall.

“Why didn’t you get too much sleep last night?” Lila asked with fake concern.

Alya smiled. Lila was too kind.

“I was just thinking. Nothing important!”

They all gave her a concerned look.

“Is it because of Nino?” Rose asked.

Alya froze.

“Yeah… It’s fine though! He just needs space!”

“I don’t know," Lila started."A week seems like a long time to be angry when you didn’t do anything wrong.”

Juleka frowned.

“She did do something wrong though. She forced someone to come out when Nino repeatedly told her it wasn’t her business and then proceeded to not apologize for her mistakes.” 

Lila let out a fake gasp as Alya felt worse.

“Oh. I didn’t mean it like that! I was just trying to say that she didn’t do anything wrong on purpose, it was an accident after all.”

Juleka still looked upset.

“Yeah. An accident.”

“Let’s not talk about this now!” Rose cut in. “We’re supposed to be having fun!”

“Right! Sorry, it’s just affecting me a lot more today than usual.”

As the others started to comfort Alya, Lila had was thinking

Speaking of Nino, he seemed to not ogile at everything Lila said like he used to. Something was up. She thought for a moment.

‘Of course!’ She thought. ‘He must’ve found out I've been lying!’

She bit her nail. She needed a way to isolate him like she did with Marinette, so if he said anything, no one would believe me. She couldn't let her kingdom crumble. She smirked as she came up with an idea. She put on a sad and nervous facade.

“Well I feel like  **you ** should be the one that’s mad, not the other way around.”

Alya and the other girls turned to Lila.

“What do you mean?”

“Well- I,” she pretended to be hesitant. “Just pretend I didn’t say anything! I don’t want you to be any more upset then you already are.”

Alya looked at Lila with concern.

“Lila. You can tell me anything.”

Lila smirked in her mind.

“It’s just… I think Nino is cheating on you.”

Alya looked at her in shock.

“W-What? Why would you-?!”

“See! I told you’d be upset!” She said while she let out a few crocodile tears.

“No no no! I’m not upset with you Lila! I swear! But- But what made you think that?”

“Well… I’ve been seeing him with this girl lately and I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want you to get hurt!”

Alya looked sick while the others stared in disbelief. 

“Nino wouldn’t do that-!”

“I’m sure that this is a misunderstanding-!”

“I’m sure she’s just a friend-!”

Alya felt her eyes get wet. There was no way he would do that to her. Right? 

“What girl?” She asked in a broken voice.

Lila was about to say something when she noticed a very familiar figure behind them. It was Nino. And he was talking to a girl. It was perfect.

She pointed in the direction of the two.

“Her.”

They all turned to see Nino with a tall and beautiful girl. She was talking to Nino and was giving him puppy eyes. He seemed reluctant before agreeing to do something. Then she picked him up in a hug and spun him around. What was a kick in the gut for Alya is when she saw he was laughing. He was smiling. That was her smile. She felt a surge of anger as she rushed over to the two. The girl had put him down and that’s when he noticed her.

“Alya?” She heard.

The girl turned to face towards her. She hated that she looked prettier up close. She hated that Nino was with her. She hated that this girl, made Nino laugh like she used to.

“Alya? What are you-?”

She slapped the girl with everything she’s got.

“Get away from my boyfriend!”

“Alya what the hell?! Why did you just slap Anais?!”

Alya whipped her head to face Nino.

“I can’t believe you would do this to me! I know you were mad, but to cheat? You asshole!”

Nino was shocked and looked around to see everyone in the area was looking at them.

“Alya-”

“Shut up! You’re nothing but a cheating good-for-nothing!”

“Let me just-”

“What? Explain how you’ve been cheating on me?!”

“I didn’t-!’

“No! I already know-!”

A loud slam interrupted them. Alya and Nino turned to see Anais punch the mall’s pilar. The glare that Anais sent Alya sent shivers down her spine.

“You just slapped me,” she stated.

Alya stood her ground, still afraid.

“Yeah, and you deserve it! You were-!”

“You. Fucking. Slapped. Me,” she growled as she took a step closer to Alya with every word. 

Alya took a step back. Anais towered over her and looked as if she could snap her in half. The other girls looked ready to defend her but when Anais threw her glare at them they all froze. Even the usually brave Alix couldn’t move under the glare. Anais looked like she was about to hit her when Nino’s hand went on her shoulder.

“Anais, please calm down.”

Anais turned to Nino, then back at Alya. Anais reluctantly took a step back.

Nino took the place where Anais was standing.

“Now, I have no idea how you came up with this absurd conclusion, but I have not, nor have I ever, cheated on you! Anais is only a friend, she is also Alec's sister!”

“But-!”

“And even if I did, and again, I did not, that doesn't justify slapping Anais! She would've been as much of a victim as you!"

Alya was frozen for a moment.

"What proof do you have that you didn't cheat on me?! You could be lying!"

"What proof do  **you** have that I  **am** cheating?! She is also in a relationship!"

"Well she could be cheating on them like you are-"

"Anais? Nino? What is going on?" A voice snapped their attention.

They turned their heads to see Chloé and two other people Alya didn't know.

"Honeybee!" Anais exclaimed, her face immediately morphing into a happier mood. 

Anais rushed over to give Chloé a hug and spun her around. Anais gave Chloé kiss on the cheek when she stopped spinning.

"I missed you!"

"We saw each other just yesterday," Chloé giggled. Her facial expression immediately soured when she noticed Alya other the other girls from her class. "What the hell do you want Césaire?"

Alya was frozen, mouth agape, a similar reaction to the other girls in her group. 

Lila didn’t think this would happen. She thought Alya and the others would yell at Nino so much that he wouldn’t even get a single word out. She thought Alya would just break up with him then and there, causing the rest of the class to hate him. Isolate him. She didn’t account that the girl, Anais, would be so scary. Didn’t account that Nino would be able to explain himself. Didn’t account for them to have  **proof** , especially with the fact that Anais is gay. Her plan was falling apart.

"She's in a relationship with Chloé??” Alix asked in surprise and promptly shutting up when Anais sent her another glare.

Chloé scoffed and flipped her hair back.

“Of course she is! I’m wonderful!”

“That you are my queen,” Anais said as she snuggled closely to Chloé, causing her to giggle again. 

Nino started aggressively gesturing to the happy couple to Alya.

"See? I couldn’t have cheated on you because she's a fricken lesbian!"

"I identify as queer!" Anais called out.

"Right! Sorry! She identifies as queer! So there is no way she could've been in a secret relationship with me if she isn't even attracted to me!"

"Yeah! I don't find him attractive at all! No offense Nino."

"None take! You have a preference and it's not- Shit! I'm getting off topic!" He shook his head then stared Alya in the eyes. "For the last time, I did not cheat on you."

Alya, still frozen, but still tried to defend her actions.

"But Lila said-"

Nino let out a yell of frustration.

"I don't fucking care what Lila said! I can't believe- you just- and I- urgh!!!" Nino slumped in exhaustion. "I can't do this anymore. I just can't."

Alya felt tears prick her eyes.

"What do you mean you can't do this anymore? Are you breaking up with me?"

Nino sighed.

"Yes. Yes I am. I can't be with someone who doesn't listen to me, who just believes everything and anything someone says about me, I can't- I can't be someone who doesn't trust me."

Alya was crying now.

"Nino- I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I made a mistake! Please! Don't do this!"

She can't lose him. She already lost enough. Not him too.

"I promise I'll be better. I won't jump to conclusions! Please! Don't," she choked. "Don't leave me."

"I'm sorry Alya. But we're through."

Alya broke down, and crumbled to the floor. The other girls helped her up and lead her to the exit. Juleka and Rose quickly congratulated Chloé and her relationship as they left. Alya felt hollow as she cried. She had lost the most important thing to her.

Nino sighed as he watched his classmates and now ex-girlfriend to the exit. By the time they left, their peanut gallery had lost interest and got back to what they were doing before.

"Hey Nino, are you ok?" Allegra asked, voice filled with concern.

Nino sighed.

"No, not really, but I'll be fine. This was for the best. I'm just glad Marinette wasn't here for this. I feel like it would've been a lot worse."

"That's true…," Anais said. "By the way, where is she?"

"Oh she had to do a couple errands before she came her and apparently Claude had ran into her and decided to help her. What about Alec and Felix?"

Anais shrugged.

"No clue. They could be anywhere for all I know."

* * *

Adrien sat in his room, curled into himself. The past few days have been one of the worst days of his life, seconding to when his mother disappeared. After he left Marinette's balcony from a few nights ago he broke down sobbing in his room. He lost her. He hurt her. He was awful. It only got worse as the days went on as Nino was still ignoring him and that Lila was getting more and more aggressive with the physical contact. And then the akuma attack the day before happened. Everything about it was awful, and when he heard that Lila could've been an accomplice to the victims' friend's death felt like a slap to the face. He's been defending a murder. And she would've taken another victim if Marinette hadn't switched schools. And then he got hit by the akuma. He could feel sadness wash over him as his saddest memories played through his mind. It got worse and worse as time went on. As he felt every ounce of pain the victims felt. He shivered at the memory. It still plagues his mind. Plagg had been trying to comfort him as best he can, but to no avail. Luckily Adrien didn't have any photoshoots today so he could just lay down and-

"Nice room you got here."

Adrien shot up and whipped his head to the voice. It was Alec.

"H-How did you get in??"

Alec smiled.

"Félix."

Adrien felt dread fill his body. He knew they were coming but he didn't think they would kill him in broad daylight.

"Where is-?"

"Talking with your dad. Don't worry, Félix's not here to lecture you, neither am I."

Adrien looked at Alex with suspicion.

"Then why  **are** you here?"

Alec was quiet for a moment and Adrien suddenly felt that it was a trap and-.

"I came here to apologize."

Adrien's mind shut down for a moment.

He let out a few incoherent words for his mind couldn't process what Alec just said.

"You were right. I shouldn't have made that plan with Félix and Nino. It was a bad idea and would've turned me into her. So, I'm sorry."

Adrien was gaping before promptly closing his mouth.

"So you're not going to expose Lila anymore?"

"Ha! Of course we are. But just in a less traumatizing way."

Adrien blinked a few times.

"Oh… okay, um, apology accepted?"

"Dude you don't have to accept it just because you're afraid of me exposing your little secret. Don't worry, I'm not going to tell anyone."

"How do I know you're not lying to me? How can I trust you? I don't even really know you."

Alec shrugged.

"You don't. But you sorta have to."

Adrien grumbled, he hated that Alec was right.

"Okay… well apology still accepted."

"Speaking of apologizes, did you apologize to Marinette yet?"

Adrien was sullen.

"No… I don't know how to even approach her let alone talk to her. She hates me."

"I wouldn't say hate you… just disappointed in you."

Adrien winced.

"Gee, thanks, that makes me feel a lot better."

"Hey, just saying what I'm pretty sure is true."

Adrien raised an eyebrow.

"Pretty sure?"

"Hey. I'm not going to make the same mistake and decide how Marinette feels. I only think, but not know.. If you want to know yourself, then ask her."

"But what if she yells at me! What if she tells me to go away! What if she tells me that she does hate me!"

"Then she yells at you! She tells you go away! She tells you she hates you! If that's how she feels then that's how she feels! But you know what? You don't even know if she'll do that because you haven't even tried talking to her!" Alec exclaimed. He took a deep breath before continuing. "Adrien, we can be here forever talking about the "what if's", but you'll never know what she'll actually do, or say, if you don't do anything. You have to do something and that something better be productive."

Adrien hung his head. Alec was right. He needs to actually  **do** something for once.

"Thank you Alec… I needed to hear that."

Alex smirked.

"You're welcome. I still hate you by the way."

Adrien sighed.

"I figured."

Alec left leaving Adrien alone with his thoughts.

"I've been telling you stuff like this for weeks and it only took him two talks with you to get it into your thick skull?" Plagg asked as he munched on his cambert. 

Almost alone.

Alec walked down the grand stairs and looked around for any sign of Félix and Adrien’s dad.

“They are at M. Agreste’s office,” a voice from his right stated.

He turned to see Nathalie, M. Agreste’s assistant.

He smiled politely.

“Thank you. May you please point in the direction of his office?”

“I will walk you there.”

They walked towards the office. As they got closer they could hear voices.

“Uncle, if you expand your clothing design to a younger audience, you'll be able to increase your revenue by 15%."

Gabriel looked at the business plan and did a few calculations in his head. 

He nodded in agreement.

"Very good Félix, I'll see what I can do to execute this plan."

Nathalie knocked on the office’s door.

“Come in.”

They both walked in to see Gabriel Agreste sat at his desk with Félix over his shoulder reviewing other business ideas.

“Alec, are you done with talking to Adrien already?”

Alec nodded.

“Yep,” he turned to face Gabriel. “Thank you for letting him into your home.”

Gabriel nodded.

“It is my pleasure.”

Alec looked around the room and noticed a few new clothing designs. He looked at than and noticed they looked very similar to the akumas the past few weeks.

“Hawkmoth…,” 

Nathalie and Gabriel tensed up. Had they been exposed? 

“These designs are based off of the akumas Hawkmoth make right? ‘Cause this one looks a lot like that art akuma.”

The two relaxed.

“Yes,” Gabriel stated. “I’m surprised you noticed, most don’t.”

Alec shrugged.

“Yeah, there are some considerable differences with your design, but if you look at the color scheme and the basic design of the akuma’s form, you can see it. See? This one is inspired by the most recent akuma.” Pointing at a metallic design that indicated that the colors would change from white to black.

Félix inspected the drawing.

“You’re right. That’s Claude, Alan and Anais’ akumatized design.”

Gabriel was slightly shocked. One of his most powerful akuma, and his nephew knew them.

“You know the akumatized kids?”

Félix nodded.

“Yes. I was there when they got akumatized. It was… rather unfortunate why they got akumatized.”

Alec scoffed.

“Rather unfortunate? That’s an understatement. It crushed them to hear that skank Lila could’ve been the one who killed our friend.”

“Alec!” Félix admonished his language.

“Fine. Bitch. Either one works.”

Félix shook his head in disappointment as Gabriel went rigid.

“Lila? As in Lila Rossi? What do you mean she could’ve been the one who killed your friend?”

Félix looked sad.

“Do you remember Bridgette?”

Gabriel nodded. She was Félix’s ex-girlfriend who had commited suicide. 

“Well, she was bullied a considerable amount that caused her to-,” Félix paused. They all knew the last word of the sentence. No one wanted to say it though.

“And Lila was there when it happened,” Alec continued for Félix. “She was at the same school, same class, and the same group that Bridgette quote-on-quote “bullied”. Which is you know, bull-” Félix glared at Alec. Alec looked him directly in the eyes. “-shit because even you, M. Agreste, said that Bridgette is one of the sweetest girls you’ve met. Plus she was doing the same thing to Félix’s now girlfriend, Marinette. We don’t have solid proof, but the patterns between the two are too much to be a coincidence.”

Félix nodded and checked his watch.

“Alec, we better get going.”

Alec nodded. They both thanked Gabriel again and left. 

Gabriel was silent.

“Nathalie?”

“Yes sir?”

“Cut off all ties with Mlle. Rossi, we do not need her help anymore. And make sure Adrien stays away from her.”

Nathalie nodded as she left to do what she was told.

Gabriel rubbed his temple. He knew of what Lila was doing to Marinette, he was actually encouraging her secretly. He wanted Marinette to become akumatized, as she could’ve been his most powerful akuma. But to hear she was doing as much that could cause a girl to kill herself? That a girl has killed herself? He wasn’t the most morally inclined person, but he drew the line at killing. Even his akumas hasn’t directly or indirectly killed anyone. He thought about how broken his usually stone faced nephew was. It was the same feeling Gabriel felt as Emile fallen into a coma. He didn’t want his nephew to feel like that again. He didn’t want to be the one who caused another death under Lila’s name. He didn’t want to hurt his nephew. He especially doesn’t want a girl like Lila near his son. Maybe it is best if Adrien moved schools all together.

* * *

Marinette and Claude jogged over to the group. 

“Hey guys! Sorry we’re late!” 

Alan smiled.

“No worries. Alec and Félix aren’t even here yet so you’re good.”

“Where are they?” Marinette asked.

“No idea,” they all said in unison.

“That was equally creepy and impressive,” Claude said as his face was a split between creeped out and awe.

They all laughed.

Marinette smiled.

“Okay well we should at least-”

“Ma-Ma-Marinette?” A playful voice called out from behind her.

She knew that voice. She turned around and smiled to see Luka.

“Luka! It’s good to see you! Also you’re not getting over my stuttering introduction are you?”

Luka laughed.

“Nope. Who are these people you’re hanging out with?”

“Oh!” She almost forgot that most of them didn’t know Luka. “Well this is Anais, Allegra, Claude, Alan, and as you know, Chloé and Nino,” she said as she gestured to her friends with the corresponding names.

They all waved and said their greetings. 

“So what are you doing here Luka?” Marinette asked chippered.

“I was dropping off Juleka to hang out with the girls and I decided to go to the music store and buy more guitar string.”

Marinette froze.

“Juleka and the other girls are here?” 

“Actually, she texted me five minutes ago saying they were all going to Alya’s house.”

“Oh,” Marinette said. She saw the others besides Claude had gotten tense so they must’ve known or done something that caused it. She’ll need to ask them later.

“I heard from Juleka that you transferred schools?” Luka asked.

“Marinette broke out of her trance and smiled.

“Yeah! That’s where I met most of them,” she said, gesturing to the group. “I really like it there!”

“She also told me why she thinks you left.”

Marinette’s face fell.

“Okay pretty boy, if you think you’re going to lecture Mari you have another thing coming,” Anais said as she cracked her knuckles.

“No no no. I don’t believe what Lila has been saying about her. I’ve met her and her song was very rigid and distorted. I wanted to tell Juleka what I thought but she brushed it off saying it was because I had a crush on Marinette.”

“Oh,” Anais said as she relaxed.

“Wait what do you mean by song-?”

“I would like to point out that she has a boyfriend!” Allegra said cutting off Claude. “Speak of the devil, there he is with Alec.”

They all turn to see Félix and Alec walk towards them.

“Sorry we’re late, our prior business took longer than we expected,” Félix said as he noticed Luka. “Who’s this?”

Luka offered his hand.

“Hi I’m Luka.”

Félix eyes narrowed. He’s heard of Luka from Marinette. He wrapped his arms around Marinette possessively.

“Félix. Marinette’s boyfriend.”

Marinette giggled.

“Nice to meet you!”

Luka turned to Alec and gave the same greeting. Alec was starstruck and frozen.

Anais elbowed him.

“Hi!- Alec- name Alec! I- my name’s Alec” Alec stuttered out.

Everyone besides Luka looked at Alec in shock. They’ve never seen him like this before.

Luka smiled.

“Well, it’s nice to meet Alec. I hope we can get to know each other more.

“Yes! I mean yes!- I mean… I’d like that.” 

“Can I give you my phone number?”

Alec, not trusting his voice, nodded and gave him his phone.

Luka punched in his phone number onto Alec’s phone. 

“Great! See you then! It was nice meeting all of you! Bye Ma-Ma-Marinette,” he waved and left. 

They all continued to look at Alec with shock as he buried his flushed face into his hands.

“Say anything and I’ll actually hurt you,” he said as he tried to curl up into himself.

“What? That you totally suck at flirting you blushing mess?” Claude asked in a teasing tone.

“That’s it!” Alec pounced at Claude. Claude started screaming.

“Huh, I can finally see the resemblance,” Chloé said to Anais as the others tried to stop Alec from killing Claude.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter that didn't take a whole month? I am on a roll! That roll will probably stop after this chapter 'cause I have no idea what to do next! Next chapter will probably be a filler with them playing laser tag I don't know. You guys can tell me how you want it to go.
> 
> Also I didn't intend for things between Alya and Nino to escalate so quick, but I got bored while I was babysitting and since the kids were asleep I decided "Hey. Let's have Alya slap Nino for some reason!" and then I build up from there. 
> 
> Also in my story Gabriel isn't a total asshole! Why? I don't know! Probably because I wasn't feeling like trash when I was writing that scene! 
> 
> Again. Tell me how you want the next chapter to go 'cause I didn't really think this story would get as much as attention as it has. I was planning to drop it after chapter six or seven but then people seem to like it so I continued it. 
> 
> Also my poor gay baby can't flirt for his life. I love him.


	15. Discarded Credit Card

Previously

_ “Say anything and I’ll actually hurt you,” he said as he tried to curl up into himself. _

_ “What? That you totally suck at flirting?” Claude asked in a teasing tone. _

_ “That’s it!” Alec pounced at Claude. Claude started screaming. _

_ “Huh, I can finally see the resemblance,” Chloé said to Anais as the others tried to stop Alec from killing Claude. _

* * *

Marinette was on her toes, waiting for Alya as an akuma to come any minute. When she heard what happened from multiple people at once, then calmly explained by Nino about the events before, she was certain that a heartbroken themed akuma would come for Nino or possibly Anais. As everyone talked mindlessly as they walked towards the laser tag arena, Alec and Félix were talking to Allegra about school work, Claude, Alan and Nino were discussing about video game music while, both groups a few steps ahead of her while she lagged behind with Chloé and Anais. She kept looking over her shoulder, making note of any hidden places she could transform in. A hand clasped onto her shoulder startled her back into reality, she turned to see it was Anias, her arm wrapped around Chloé’s shoulder and warm smile on her face.

“Hey, relax. I know you’re worried about that Alya chick coming to swoop in and cause havoc, but you don’t have to worry about that anymore. She ran off fifteen minutes before you and Claude arrived and we’ve been walking for like ten minutes-”

“Ani honey it’s only been two minutes,” Chloé said.

“Wait? Really? Feels way longer than that. You sure?”

“Yes I’m sure, you’re just lazy.”

Anais brought up her hand to her chest and let out exaggerated gasp.

“I can’t believe that you, my sweetheart! My waking world! The sun to my moon!-”

“Jesus ‘Nais, dramatic much?” Alec cut in from the group ahead of them.

“-Shut up, no one asked you.”

Alec stuck his tongue at her while Anais made a face at him.

“Okay, where was I? Oh yeah- Light of my life! You wound me! Absolutely wound me!”

She dramatically leans her body on top of Chloé pretending to fall in pain. 

Chloé rolled her eyes and smiled.

“Stop being so dramatic, and get off me you big oaf, you’re heavy.”

“And now she’s calling me fat? Devastated! Completely devastated!”

Anais leans a bit more weight on Chloé, causing them to stumble a little. Both laughing as they nearly fall. 

Marinette giggled at the interaction.

Anais steadies herself along with Chloé as she tries to subdue her laughter.

“Okay, okay, okay I had a point to this- what was my point-? Oh yeah! It’s been like an hour-”

“Twenty minutes.”

“Tomato Potato. Point being: it’s been a long time and if she was going to be akumatized, she would’ve been destroying everything by now. You can relax Maribear.”

“Okay one, that is not how the saying goes, and two, Marinette she has a point. Cessaire isn’t going to come and break everyone’s heart or whatever her power may be and destroy things. You don’t have to worry anymore.”

Marinette’s shoulder lost a bit of tension and smiled at the two.

“Yeah, you’re right. Thanks guys.”

Anais smiled as she wrapped her arm around Chloé again.

“No problem.”

“It was nothing, plus we need your head focused on what’s important: The laser tag match,” Chloé said as she snuggled close to Anais and a wicked smile on her face.

Marinette eyes get a competitive gleam in them as her mouth turns upward to a smirk.

“Of course. I’m bringing my A-Game to this.”

They all soon walked into the laser tag arena, excitement building up as they looked at their surroundings. The main entrance was painted black with swirls of glow in the dark paint of different colors that stood out in the dimly lit room. To their left were tables and a food stand with fattening and overpriced food, while to their right was the flashing lights and loud sounds of the arcade. In front of them was a desk with prizes for the arcade and sign up sheets for laser tag, and two large doors which lead them to the many arenas. Everything was buzzing with activity of other people in the large space. 

Félix and Alec walked towards the desk to talk to a worker and get them all situated. They quickly gave them sheets along with pencils to fill out for the game.

“The guy said we have to fill out all the stuff and sign a waiver or something,” Alec said as he pulls out his credit card.

“Why they need a waiver is sort of concerning, but understandable judging the many casualties that could happen just by being in the arena,” Félix said as he too takes out his credit card. “Also Alec, I can pay for it.”

Alec smiled.

“No, it’s fine. I got,” he said as he holds his hand out with his credit card to the worker.

“Alec, you paid for our last outing, let me pay this time,” Félix pushes Alec’s hand away and tries to give to the now nervous looking worker.

“Oh jeez, not again” Alan said as he witness the interaction.

“I’m confused, what’s happening?” Nino asked as Allegra hands him one of the sheets of paper.

“It’s nothing,” Anais said with a sigh. “Both of them were taught at a young age to be courteous, especially to our friends and families, and that includes paying for things. Félix. because his father taught him this as an edicate thing, and Alec, because our mother is Asian.”

“Félix. I’m paying,” Alec said pushing Félix’s hand away and held out his card towards the scared worker.

Félix takes Alec’s card with his other hand and holds out his own card again.

Félix glares at Alec as Alec glares at him back.

Alec grabs Félix’s card and throws it across the room. 

Félix looks at Alec in shock as Alec pulls out another credit card. Both locking eyes, a silent battle between the two as the worker tries to leave without them noticing.

“And that’s our cue to leave them be,” Allegra said as she ushers them to the tables by the food stand as Alan goes to retrieve Félix’s discarded (thrown) credit card. 

They all sat down on chairs with tables near each other while Alec’s and Félix’s bickering could be heard from afar. They start to fill out their sheets.

“Alright first: name. Easy!”

“Claude you spelt your name wrong.”

“No I didn’t-! Oh shot you’re right.”

“How do you misspell your own name?”

“It happens, shut up!”

“Why does it need our address?”

“And our birthday?”

“Why the heck is gender important?”

“Don’t question it, just fill it out.”

“No, do question it, these guys could be stalkers!”

“I’m pretty sure if a multi-chained franchise had lawsuits involving them selling or using personal information of their customers, they wouldn’t be doing so well. ”

“And how do you know they haven’t had this issue before? Did you look it up-?”

“Claude shut up!”

“Guys just sign the waiver and get this over with so we can play.”

“Your handwriting looks awful ‘Llegra.”

“Shut up Anais, yours literally looks like scribbles!”

“Hey what does it mean by nickname?” Alan asked.

They all freeze and look down at their paper to see the last box to fill out is labeled “Nickname”.

“I’m not sure actually,” Allegra said.

“Maybe it’s asking what we’re preferred to be called?” Claude asks.

“That doesn’t make sense, we could have just put that in the name column,” Chloé pointed out.

“No I think Claude’s on the right track,” Marinette chimned in. “I think it’s the name we use in the game, kinda like an avatar name.”

“That makes sense,” Nino said as he starts thinking up of cool names to use.

“Awesome! I’m going to have the coolest name!” Claude exclaimed as he quickly writes something.

Anais snorts.

“I doubt that,” she says as she tries to see what Claude is writing.

“Ah ah ah!” Claude says loudly as he covers his paper. “You’ll see when your screen flashes my awesome name when I shoot you with my awesome skills!”

“Again, doubt that. Guess I’ll figure out your name when you end up in last on the scoreboard.”

“Okay rude.”

“Hey why don’t we make a game out of this?” Allegra cuts in. “We all write nicknames and make sures no one reads the others and during the game we have to figure out who belongs with which name.”

Nino smiles.

“Sounds fun, I’m in.”

“Me too.”

“Count me in.”

“I’m down.”

“I am toootally losing that game.”

“Optimism Alan, you gotta work on that man.”

After they wrote their nicknames the other two start walking towards them, both looking slightly peeved. 

“Something wrong you two?” Anais asks a smirk on her face.

Alec scowled.

“No, but after five minutes of us arguing, that guy, whatever his name was it was Noe or Noah-”

“Not even close, his name was Paul.”

“Yeah. Whatever. He finally told us that apparently someone already called this morning saying that she’ll be paying for a group of nine teenagers that will walk in around at a certain time. She gave them her credit card number and told them to charge it for the amount of times that group of teenagers will play. She was also specific about two of those teenagers are going to argue about who gets to pay so they’ll be for sure about which group of teenagers to pay for. Now what did they say her name was again Félix?”

“I don’t know Alec, if I can recall they said her name was a Mlle. Dupain-Cheng.”

Everyone turned to Marinette who was wearing a shit-eating grin.

“Oooh plot twist.”

“Shut up Claude- Marinette, why did you go through all that trouble just to pay?” Alec asked.

“And why didn’t you tell us you already paid for it?” Félix chimned in. 

“Because, you two never let anyone else pay because of your whole “courteous” thing and when I try you two team up to stop me so I had to take desperate measures. Also Alec, if you’ve somehow forgotten, I also have an Asian mom so I was brought up just like you on this matter. Also, “all that trouble”? Alec you once told us that you had Anais tackle your cousin just so you two could pay for the meal.”

“Point taken, well that’s settled, did you guys fill out your sheets already?”

A chorus of “yes” are heard from the group.

“Great! We didn’t, so just give us a moment to fill everything so we can hand them in at the same time.”

Anais and Claude groaned loudly as Félix and Alec start filling out everything.

“Also because we have an arena to ourselves, courteously due to Marinette, before I forget, thank you Marinette,” Félix says as he smiles at her.

Everyone loudly thanks Marinette.

“-Does everyone want to split into groups, or would you rather just have it decided by random?” 

“We should do boys vs girls!” Alan suggests.

Alec freezes.

“I don’t think that’s a good ide-”

“That sounds fun,” Chloé says.

“Won’t that mean you guys have the advantage since there’s four of us and five of you?” Allegra asks.

“Oh there’ll be an advantage, but not for us-” Alec says before Claude interrupts him.

“Why? You scared to lose to us boys?”

“Not a chance! We’ll wipe the floor with you guys!”

“Understatement of the century, why can’t we do random like Félix suggested?” Alec tries to say when he gets cut off again.

“We’ll totally beat you dudettes!” Nino said with confidence.

“Really? Want to make a bet out of that?” Allegra asked challengingly.

“No. Nu-uh. No bets-!”

“What’s the bet?” Asked Alan.

“If we win you guys have to dress in drag for an entire day.”

“Okay not as bad as I thought but still can we not-?” Alec tried to say.

“Okay, but if we win you girls have to…”

“You guys have to watch all of Supernatural!”

“What?! That’s fifteen seasons! That’s going to take months of binge watching while you guys just have to wear dresses or skirts for a day,” Chloé said exasperated 

“Hey! My masculinity isn’t strong enough yet for me to wear female marketed clothing out in public where people may judge me! If I can get over that for an entire day, you can watch a show we guys-”

“Not me.”

“All the guys besides Félix, have been trying to get you girls into. Plus our part of the bet could bring us closer together as a group as we get excited over a show collectively while we discuss why Destiel should’ve been a thing!”

“Claude, dude, you gotta get over it.”

“They’ve been queerbaiting us for almost twelve seasons if we include season four, which I do! They should’ve been together!”

“Claude, it wasn’t going to happen.”

“Dean literally told Cas that the look he was giving him led to sex and then Cas gave the same look harder! That’s just-! Augh!”

The girls started to talk with each other as Nino and Alan tried to calm down a distraught Claude.

“Okay, we’ll watch Supernatural, but you guys go all out! Make-up, wigs, cute outfits, shave your legs, all that stuff! And we do this on a school day!”

“Is no one going to listen to me??” Alec exclaimed.

“Deal!” Claude exclaimed. “Jokes on you, we have uniforms!”

“Except me.”

“Except Nino!”

“Hold on, I did not agree to this.” Félix stated.

A chorus of groans was let out by the group except for Alec who cheered.

“Yes! Thank you Félix! We should not do this!” Alec said loudly.

“Why? You afraid to lose?” Marinette asked cheekily.

“Of course not, I just think this bet is ridiculous.”

“Uh huh, of course you do, you’re just afraid you’ll lose and have to wear a skirt. You’re just chicken.”

A chorus of “oohs” taunted Félix.

“Don’t fall for it Félix! She’s egging you on!” Alec exclaimed.

“I’m not egging him on,” Marinette said innocently while batting her eyelashes.

Félix eyes narrowed challengingly.

“I am not chicken.”

Marinette quirked an eyebrow.

“You sure?”

“Félix please you’re my only hope in getting out of this-!”

“I am very sure. Even without the bet we’d still beat you.”

“So why don’t you put your money where your mouth is then?” Marinette asks as she holds out her hand waiting for him to shake it.

A beat of silence passed through the group before Félix shakes her hand. They all cheered, except for Alec who merely groaned. 

“Can I have no part of this?” Alec asked hopefully.

“No can do Lexi, majority rules and the only way to override that rule is by having Félix on your side,” Anais said in a sing-song voice as she starts to collect everyone’s paper to give to the gamemaster. 

Alec sighed again as Nino patted him on the back.

“Don’t worry dude. Marinette is usually really clumsy and I can guarantee Anais and Chloé will end up making out in some dark corner eventually. We’ll win for sure!”

Alec looked at Nino with resign, knowing Nino is blissfully ignorant. Not only do they are all majorly competitive, three out of the four girls hold or have held onto a miraculous, one being Ladybug herself. But that wasn’t what scared him. He turns to Allegra, a wicked smile on her face. He shivers. He knows that smile. He’s seen that same smile when she and Bridgette invited him to a paintball match a few years back. That same smile as she sharpshooted everyone on the opposing team. 

Alec shoulders slumped knowing his team was going to be absolutely slaughtered.

‘At least I look good in a mini skirt,’ he thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's not dead!  
Well. Physically.  
Emotionally and mentally, I've been dead since middle school.  
So I'm alive, sorry I haven't been updating I've been busying myself with after school stuff and helped out with my school plays and musicals. It was fun. Had a breakdown in front of my theater teacher over paint and stressed baked for two weeks straight. But I'm good now! At least until our spring show. I have no idea when I'm going to update again and but just know that I will always (eventually) update until I write about Lila's downfall!  
Also tell me if you guys want me to actually write the laser tag fight or just gloss over it.  
Cool.  
Thanks!

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Thanks for reading, this is my first fanfiction on this site and I'm so glad it didn't turn into me ranting! I hoped you enjoyed reading this and if you have any criticisms please tell me in the comments. Thanks!


End file.
